Werner Robert Constantin Ritter von Trapp

Werner Robert Constantin Ritter von Trapp was born in Thumersbach-Erlberg near Zell am See as the legitimate son of naval officer Georg von Ritter Trapp and his wife Agathe, née Whitehead. His mother had moved there from Pola [today: Pula, Croatia] after the outbreak of World War I. He lived there with his siblings Rupert, Agathe, Maria Franziska, Hedwig, Johanna, and Martina with his mother’s family during the war.

Following the defeat of Austria-Hungary, the collapse of the dual monarchy, and the expulsion of the House of Habsburg, he moved with his family to a house called “Martinschlössl” in Klosterneuburg near Vienna, where his father worked as a shipping entrepreneur. In 1922, not yet seven years old, he lost his mother.

In 1925, the family’s residence was in Salzburg-Aigen. There, the abbess of the Benedictine Abbey of Nonnberg sent Maria Augusta Kutschera as a governess to care for Sister Maria Franziska, who was ill. On November 26, 1927, Georg Ritter von Trapp married Maria Augusta Kutschera; Rosmarie was born in 1929, and Eleonore in 1931.

Rupert von Trapp attended high school in Innsbruck and graduated in 1934. He then attended the Mozarteum, where he played the cello and viola da gamba, among other instruments. Together with the priest Franz Wasner, his stepmother shaped the family choir, in which he sang tenor.

After suffering significant financial losses following the bankruptcy of the Lammer banking house in 1934–35, renting out living quarters and income from the family choir—founded in 1936—became important sources of revenue. After the von Trapp family won a folk singing competition at the 1936 Salzburg Festival, they were asked to perform on a half-hour radio program, which led to them performing before Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg.

"The Trapp Family" made its first appearance as a family choir in the United States on October 21, 1938, at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. Between March 1939 and the summer of 1939, the family toured Europe once more, finally traveling on September 27, 1939—immediately after the outbreak of World War II—on the S.S. Bergensfjord from Oslo to New York, where they arrived on October 7, 1939. In 1942, the family purchased a farm in Stowe, Vermont.

Werner Ritter von Trapp dies in Waitsfield at the age of 91. He is laid to rest in the family cemetery in Stowe.

In 1956, the story of the von Trapp family was adapted into a film based loosely on the story. The film was primarily based on Maria Augusta von Trapp’s hugely successful memoir, *The Trapp Family: From the Convent to World Fame* [original title: *The Story of the Trapp Family Singers*].