"To the Last Salute"

On March 24, 2007 the Captain's surviving family members and guests gathered at the Trapp Family Lodge to celebrate the English language release of Georg von Trapp's remarkable memoir, "To The Last Salute". The memoir was originally published in Salzburg in 1935 by Anton Pustet, a publishing company that no longer exists, and subsequently translated into French but never before translated into English.

Captain Georg von Trapp, father of the von Trapp Family Singers, was a celebrated naval hero and author long before his wife Maria wrote the book that spawned "The Sound of Music" play and movie.

Thanks to "The Sound of Music", the story of the Trapp family's escape from the Nazis in 1938 is the icon of legend. However, little is known in this country about the family's aristocratic patriarch: his role as a highly decorated commander of World War I submarines, and his heroism on the high seas. Elizabeth Campbell, Georg's granddaughter, has painstakingly translated that story from German to English. The result is an absorbing tale of military life in the arcane world of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

According to the University of Nebraska Press: "In his many guises Trapp describes life as captain of Austro-Hungarian U-boats in the Mediterranean and Adriatic seas, emerging by turn as the Imperial Austrian naval officer, the witty observer of international politics, and the indefatigable and ultimately heartbroken patriot opposing the Allied enemy... A picture of a lost time, a portrait of a remarkable character, a window on early submarine warfare: Trapp's story, in English for the first time, offers a rare combination of human interest, historical insight, and true life-and-death adventure." The translator, Elizabeth Campbell, is the oldest daughter of the second of three children born to Maria & Georg von Trapp.

"To the Last Salute" and other family books can be purchased online at www.trappfamily.com

Elizabeth Campbell

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