Real story of the von Trapp family singers

Posted by Going234 on 12/22/25 05:58 PM

from this morning's BBC Outlook podcast - https://www.bbc.com/audio/play/w3ct6wqr

At 86 years old, Johannes von Trapp is the last surviving child of Captain Georg von Trapp and his wife Maria whose story was turned into The Sound of Music, about a trainee nun who became a governess and then mother to the von Trapp children. Sixty years after its release, Johannes tells us the extraordinary true story; from his mother's initial reluctance to marry Captain von Trapp, to the family having to flee the Nazi occupation of their home in Austria, leaving behind a wealthy lifestyle before eventually arriving in New York in 1938 with very little money. With a total of ten children - seven of them from Georg's first marriage - the family settled in Vermont and toured the world as the Trapp Family Singers.

Posted by Barbara

Brooklyn, NY

12/23/25 04:37 AM

4877 posts

What a fun listen. So interesting to hear about the family’s story evaluation from Maria’s book to the Sound of Music movie. I always thought there was more to their story than in the movie.
I’ll have to research if Maria’s book was translated to English and is around somewhere on the internet to read or purchase.

Edited- I just looked it up. It was actually written in English and translated into German. The title is The Story of the Trapp Family Singers.

Posted by pbscd

USA

12/23/25 02:08 PM

347 posts

The Story of the Trapp Family Singers is excellent! I schedule it in year 6 for my children.

Posted by Sam

Green Bay

12/23/25 10:07 PM

22953 posts

The story has some even stranger twists. The BBC story explains that Captain von Trapp was a submarine commander, but not where he got the money for that big house in Salzburg.

It was his first wife's (mother of the 7 children), who had died. She was the grand daughter of a British engineer named Whitehead who had settled in Trieste in the steam age and worked on a number of projects on steam boats. One of his ideas eventually resulted in the torpedo, which he patented. For a time, it was referred to as the Whitehead torpedo. Patent royalties were collected in a British bank. So every time captain von Trapp sank a British ship (and he sank a lot), royalties accrued in the British bank. How ironic.

During the 20's, Austria was in a financial crisis, and Captain von Trapp, in an act of patriotism, was convinced to move his money from the British bank to an Austrian bank. The Austrian bank promptly went bust. Result was the Trapp Family Singers. They had to now sing for their supper, so to speak.

Captain von Trapp was able to leave Austria because he had an Italian passport. He was born in Zadar, now part of Croatia, then part of Austria, but in 1939, was a part of Italy. So he could claim Italian citizenship based on his birthplace.

Posted by LADTM

Torrance, CA

12/24/25 01:01 AM

79 posts

A few years ago, we visited family in Vermont. They introduced us to a neighbor, "Chris." He had been their realtor and they'd become friends. We had a fun conversation. Later on, I said something about enjoying meeting him. My relative nonchalantly said, yes ... and did I mention that his last name is Von Trapp? His grandfather was one of the kids in the Von Trapp Family Singers. Huh. The family still runs a lodge in Stowe, Vermont.