Actually, Georg was not inducted into the German Navy. He had been an Austrian Naval hero who was one of the earliest submarine commanders ever. He had been offered a commission by the Nazis and turned it down...then they got out because as Maria said “Saying no to Hitler 3 times was dangerous.” The family had also been invited to sing for Hitler’s birthday, as well as incident with their newly made doctor son. The son had just graduated medical school and was offered a fine position, but he intimated they expected him to preform acts which he was unwilling to do. i.e. abortions. So he also turned that post down. As for those of you wondering about an “Austrian Navy” bear in mind the old Austro-Hungarian empire was much larger than the present day borders of Austria. It included the sea coast of what because Yugoslavia. Interesting story in the book “The Trapp Family Singers” of how when Maria first became pregnant they travelled to a Munich specialist re: her pregnancy (who advised her to abort the baby she was carrying, i.e. Johannes, later born in the US in 1939) - that was about the time her husband was offered the commision and the other 2 incidents ... they decided to see the new “House of German Art” which was close by. God awful stuff, but Maria, smelled food, and it turns out they had a cafe, which was unheard of at the time in an art museum. They went and were seated. And noticed no one was smoking — very unusual for the time. When they asked their waiter what was going on, he pointed out that very close by was Hitler and a rather raucous party. She got to observe him relatively close up, and she and Georg decided he was extremely vulgar, with bad table manners and he laughed at his own jokes, and his adoring entourage was expected to roar with laughter at what he said.
Wow,
thank you for the interesting post.
So they saw Hitler in person.
Evil has a certain presence to it that is hard to ignore.
Wow, thanks for that info.
Agreed. von Trapp was one of the most brilliant Submarine commanders of World War I. He would’ve been a major asset to Admiral Doenitz in the German Navy. Thank goodness he defected.