Georg Joannes Ritter von Trapp was born in Zadar!

**derLowe** · 04-09-2012, 05:23 PM

Georg Joannes Ritter von Trapp
Relevant Non-Istrians

eorg Johannes Ritter von Trapp (April 4, 1880 - May 30, 1947) headed the famous Austrian singing family that has been highly fictionalized in the musical The Sound of Music and which culminates on the untrue story of Georg's family leaving a Nazi-occupied country on Christmas Eve. Von Trapp had many ties with Istria.

Tombstone of August von Trapp in "K.u.K. Marinefriedhof" (Austrian Naval Cemetery), Pola, Istria. Source Early Life and Naval Career

Georg Joannes Ritter von Trap was born in Zara (now Zadar), Dalmatia, then part of Austria-Hungary (now Croatia) on April 4, 1880 to August and Hedwig Wepler Ritter von Trapp (1836-1884), and had an older sister, Hedwig (the Austrian artist Hede von Trapp), and a brother Werner, who died in 1915 in World War I.
August, a Commandant in the Austrian Navy, died of typhoid fever when Georg was four years old, and is buried in the Austrian Naval Cemetery in Pola (now Pula), Istria. Georg's mother managed to raise her three children on a small pension, moving first to her mother's home in Eisenach, Germany, then to Graz, Austria, where the children went to school.
In 1894, Georg followed his father's career in the Navy, entering the Naval Academy in Rijeka (Fiume). In those days, the schooling included etiquette, dancing and violin lessons because the officers were allowed to go to social events, including court balls. He graduated four years later and completed two years of follow-up training voyages including a trip to Australia. In 1900 he was assigned to the armored cruiser Kaiserin und Königin Maria Theresia and was decorated for his performance during the Boxer Rebellion. In 1902, he passed the officer's examination.
Georg was fascinated by submarines and was determined to join the new and still very hazardous submarine service. In 1908 he seized the opportunity to transfer to the newly-formed U-boot-Waffe. Von Trapp went to Fiume where innovations were being made in submarine and torpedo technology at Whitehead and Co. The Austrian navy commissioned him to go there and study their design and construction techniques. Promoted to Lieutenant Commander, he was later offered command of one of the earliest submarines in the Imperial and Royal Navy, the SMU-6 which was launched in 1910, and he commanded it until 1913.

SMU-6

Specifications (in German)

Bauwerft
Whitehead AG, Fiume
Stapellauf
10Februar 1909
Übernahme
1 April 1910
Länge
32,1 Meter
Breite
4,2 Meter
Tiefgang
3,9 Meter
Deplacement
240 / 273 Tonnen
Antrieb
2 Benzinmotoren 2 E-Motoren
Geschwindigkeit
11 kn,getaucht 8,5 kn
PS
500 PS, getaucht 230 PS
Bewaffnung
2 * 45 cm Torpedorrohre

1 * 7,5 cm SK L/30
Besatzung
19 Mann

It was at the christening of the SMU-5 in 1909, however, that he met Agathe Whitehead (born in 1890), the granddaughter of Robert Whitehead, the manufacturer of submarines and inventor of the torpedo, and it was Agathe who christened von Trapp's new U-boat. At the party for that event, Agathe played the violin and her mother Agathe Breunner Whitehead played the piano. It was a case of "love at first sight", and Agathe invited Georg to visit her family's summer home at Zell am See, Austria, a chalet named the Erlhof, which had a spectacular view of Mt. Kitzsteinhorn in the Alps. The pair continued seeing each other, attending balls and parties during the social seasons in Pola, Trieste and Fiume, which culminated in their high society wedding on January 10, 1911 (March 1, 1912 is given as the alternate date of the wedding by sources who follow that their first son was born out of wedlock).
It was said of Georg that he had two great loves in his life: the sea and Agathe. Sadly, although he proved himself to be a masterful sailor as well as a devoted husband, he was destined to lose both of these loves. Still, his years of marriage were happy ones. The couple moved to the Trapp villa in Pola (now Pula) where their first child, Ruper Georg von Trapp, was born on November 1, 1911. The second child, Agathe, was born there on March 12, 1913. When Maria Francisca arrived on September 28, 1914, Agathe sent her husband a telegram to inform him of the arrival. Because of the war, however, sending personal telegrams to the military was not permitted, so they had agreed ahead of time on a code. When the baby was born, Agatha sent Georg a telegram telling him that "S.M.S. Maria arrived."
World War I - Submarines in the Mediterranean

Lschlt Trapp auf dem Turm von SMU 5 At the beginning of 1915, the already famous SMU-21 (Kptlt. Otto Hersing) after refueling at the Adriatic Austrian port of Pola was sent to the Dardanelles to assist in Turkey's defence. Hersing, who had shown so dramatically the U-boats worth as a weapon with the sinking of HMS Pathfinder, again proved to be an extremely skilled commander with spectacular success: On May 25, 1915 SMU-21 sank the battleship HMS Triumph and two days later, the unfortunate British lost another battleship to Hersing, when he sank HMS Majestic. On June 5, 1915, the triumphant SMU-21 reached Constantinople harbour showing the false number U-51 to confuse the spies ashore. For his achievements, Hersing was awarded the Pour le mérite. Following this spectacular start of the campaign was an increased U-boat presence in the Mediterranean, with flotillas being built up at Constantinople, Pola and Cattaro.
They were assisted by the small but exquisite Austrian submarine force operating from Pola. On April 22, 1915, Kptlt. Trapp took command of SMU-5, a very early and primitive submarine, with a crew that was made up of men from all corners of the empire: Austrians, Magyars, Poles, Italians, Czechs and Croats.
The Austrians had already demonstrated their combat readiness when, on the night of April 26-27, 1915 at the mouth of the Adriatic (in the Strait of Otranto in the northern Ionian Sea), the SMU-5 hit the French armoured cruiser Léon Gambetta (12,500 tons) with two torpedoes. It was the first time that a submarine attacked while submerged at night.The French cruiser was sunk within 10 (or 20?) minutes, 684 (or 648?) of its crew of 821 (?) drowned, 137 (?) survived. French cruisers were then withdrawn from Otranto blockade. [note: there is conflicting information and the numbers don't add up]
Later, still at the helm of SMU-5, Captain von Trapp sank the Italian troop transport Principe Umberto which was carrying 2,000 Italian soldiers. On August 5, 1915, the SMU-5 very narrowly escaped its own destruction in a torpedo duel with the Italian submarine Nereide off the Adriatic island of Pelagosa. The Italians fired first but missed, and then a more carefully aimed Austrian torpedo hit its mark, sinking the Italian submarine with all of its crew.

SMU-5 with Commander Georg Ritter von Trapp

On August 15, 1915, The SMU-5 captured the Greek steamship Celafonia off Durazzo. The SMU-5 itself was mined and sunk on May 16-17, 1917, then salvaged on May 19-24. On June 28, it was raised (?) in the Fasana Channel off Pola.

On October 14, 1915, von Trapp transferred to the SMU-14, formerly known at the French submarine Curie. Completed in 1913 the submarine was sunk by gunfire at Pola on Dec 20, 1914. Raised on Jan 31, 1915, it was renamed SMU-14 on Feb 7, 1915, and commissioned on June 1, 1915 to von Trapp. Lawrence Sondhaus (The Naval Policy of Austria-Hungary 1867-1918, Purdue Univ. Press, 1994) states on page 268: "Lieutenant Trapp received command of the new prize later in 1915, but from the start he lamented its engineering flaws, speculating that his grandmother could have designed a better submarine." Further work on her was necessary until Feb 1917.
During Aug 1917, under von Trapp, the SMU-14 claimed 24,800 tons including the Italian steamer Milazzo (11,480 tons), the largest merchant ship sunk by the Kriegsmarine. After the war the SMU-15 was returned to French Navy and on July 17, 1919 became Curie again. It was in service until 1929; b/u 1930.

German U-boats in Cattaro (now Kotor)

In May 1918, von Trapp he was promoted to Korvettenkapitän (Lieutenant Commander) by Emperor Franz Josef I and given command of the submarine base in the Gulf of Cattaro. His record, however, stood as the most successful Austrian submarine commander of World War I having completed 19 war patrols and sinking 12 cargo vessels, one French cruiser and one Italian submarine for a total of 58,494 tons of enemy shipping destroyed.

Agathe Whitehead and Georg von Trapp with five of their seven children (c. 1918?) Although often forgotten compared to the larger German U-boat fleet, the small Austrian submarine force proved to be a true elite with an outstanding record: They conducted 79 torpedo attacks with a hit rate of above 90%.For his role in this Captain Georg von Trapp was awarded the rare and prestigious Knight's Cross of the Order of Maria Theresa.
At the end of the war though, SMU-14, along with the rest of Austria-Hungary's Navy, had to be handed over to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (created on December 1, 1918; replaced in 1929 by the Kingdom of Yugoslavia), and the Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Navy ceased to exist.
At the end of World War I, von Trapp's wartime record stood at 19 war patrols, 12 cargo vessels totalling 45,669 tons sunk, the French armored cruiser Leon Gambetta (12,600 tons) and the Italian submarine Nereide (225 tons). Among other lesser honors, he received a knighthood and the Knight's Cross of the Order of Maria Theresia. (His title is sometimes translated as "Baron," but Ritter is closer to the British "Sir.")

Dekorationen (Decorations, in German):