REAL HISTORY: No movie has been as successful as The Sound of Music. 

A good-against-evil tear-jerker with a happy ending, the 1965 film is now standard Christmas fare. The film was adapted from a 1959 Broadway musical of the same name.

The lyrics were penned by the artful Oscar Hammerstein II. Allegations of irresponsibility for the imaginative script are against Ernest Lehman. No surprises there then.

The Sound of Music became the highest-grossing film in the history of filmmaking. Julie Andrews plays Maria Von Trapp, and Christopher Plummer takes the part of Baron von Trapp.  Hyped as a true story, the movie’s ballads are warbled over the Christmas turkey.   

The story is only loosely based on actual events. So much make-believe was woven into it that it bears little relationship to the true account.  They did get the name right.

Maria’s family name was Maria Augusta Kutschera.  As a small child, Maria ended up in a foster home as a consequence of her father’s neglect.

As the waif matured, she paid her way by carrying out menial tasks. Eventually, the youngster made her way to Salzburg where the Benedictine nuns of Nonnberg Abbey took her in. 

Upon reaching maturity, Maria Kutschera was sent to the estate of the Baron von Trapp. The widower, 20 years her senior, interviewed Maria for a job as tutor for his seven children.  

Romance between the two blossomed, and the deliriously happy couple were married on November 27 1927.

In the years following, Maria added two daughters to the baron’s brood.  One child was born in 1929 and the other in 1931.  In 1932, the Von Trapp family experienced financial difficulties before Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) was elected. The cause was financial negligence, not ‘Nazi skulduggery’.   

The distressed family were soon reduced to busking and event singing and passing the hat around.

They were singing for their supper when a priest heard their melodic refrains. The kindly clergyman invited them to perform in churches, and so the Von Trapp Choir was formed. 

In 1938, the choir performed at the now internationally celebrated Salzburg Festival. This international event continues to host the great stars of the classical music world.

The acclaimed Salzburg Festival was formed on the initiative of Hitler’s National Socialists. However, this fact is airbrushed out of the history books.

At the 1938 festival, the Von Trapp family performed in theatres, squares and along the banks of the River Salz.

The beautiful Alpine city, birthplace of Amadeus Mozart, was a carnival of NSDAP regalia; swastikas were festooned everywhere.

On this occasion, the medieval city was the favoured watering hole of the Reich’s great musical and political figures. Many of these illustrious figures lived at Konigsee and Berchtesgaden, situated nearby.

Not once were the von Trapp family harassed by the Brownshirts or anyone else. The family were well respected. This was despite the toffee-nosed aristocratic baron refusing to respect the national flag of the united Reich at that time.

There was much to celebrate. In March of the same year, the Austrian people were invited to vote in a referendum. The unambiguous choice was their acceptance or rejection of unity with Hitler’s Reich.

In an election conceded as being beyond criticism, 44,803,096 (99.02%) Austrians cast their votes in favour of unification with the Fatherland.

Why did the von Trapp family leave their homeland?  Like most emigres, the anti-socialist aristocrat thought the grass was greener elsewhere. They were not exiled from a hostile regime? 

The family never escaped over the mountains as depicted in the movie. They had no experience of hiking and departed Austria of their own free will by conventional means.

If the account given in the movie was correct, the family would have ended up at Eagles Nest. This is the Fuhrer’s mountain retreat at Obersalzberg. That would have been an epic fail.

Having emigrated to the United States, the baron was strapped for cash. Fate was soon to smile on the impoverished wanderers. One of the sons was introduced to a New York producer.

The agreement was for the Von Trapp Family Choir to tour through Europe. After Europe, they would continue on to the United States. The Von Trapp family tried to win over American audiences with their religious music but were unsuccessful.

Down to just $50 the Von Trapp family added yodeling to their singing repertoire.

The brood also adapted American folk songs and, by 1941, had achieved some popularity.

By the war’s end, the Von Trapp family had become very wealthy. They were able to purchase a 7,000-acre ranch in Stowe, Vermont. There the baron passed away peacefully in 1947. None of the von Trapp family ever saw their homeland again.

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LIFE IN THE REICH Mike Walsh: FORBIDDEN HISTORY: The standard of living in Hitler’s Third Reich surpassed the developed world. German workers enjoyed a lifestyle comparable to that of movie stars. Germany led the world in fashion, medicine, cinema, lifestyle, manufacturing, transport infrastructure, public facilities, cutting-edge science, healthcare and education. Amazon removed Life in the Reich. The book dared to show Hitler’s Germany as it was. It did not follow what the propagandists would have us believe. A real eye-opener: https://barnesreview.org/product/life-in-the-reich-hitlers-germany-1933-1945/