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Von Trapp, full frame
Granddaughter of the Austrian baron translates his memoir to round out a portrait
By Nancy Shohet West, Globe Correspondent | March 18, 2007
Until recently, Elizabeth Campbell Peters did not generally tell people that her grandparents were Baron Georg and Baroness Maria von Trapp, the couple whose lives in pre-World War II Austria inspired "The Sound of Music."
"People tend to treat me differently once they find out that my mother is a von Trapp," she said.
Besides, she grew tired of the question that inevitably followed: "Which one was she?" Referring, of course, to the spunky children depicted in the musical and film.
Peters's mother, Eleonore von Trapp Campbell, wasn't any of those seven, who were the offspring of Baron von Trapp and his first wife. Three more children, including Peters's mother, were born after Georg and Maria married; the couple left Europe in 1938 and eventually settled in Vermont.
"'The Sound of Music' is Hollywood's version of my grandmother's memoir," said Peters, who is a Belmont resident and a development officer at Cotting School in Lexington. This is the story that the American public has fallen in love with since its Broadway debut 48 years ago, but there was another account that attracted Peters: that of her grandfather, a military captain.
Peters has translated her grandfather's memoir of his experience in World War I. The book, titled "To the Last Salute: Memoirs of an Austrian U-Boat Commander," lists Georg von Trapp as author and Peters, under her maiden name of Elizabeth M. Campbell, as translator. She also wrote the introduction. It was published by the University of Nebraska Press this month.
Fans of the film remember the Nazi soldiers pounding on the door to demand that von Trapp join Hitler's navy, but many do not stop to think about why Hitler sought him so insistently.
"In World War I, my grandfather was Austria's most decorated U-boat commander," Peters explained. "He was awarded the Knight of the Military Order of Maria Theresa, the highest award bestowed in the Austrian Navy."
Peters never knew her grandfather, who died in 1947, but as a child she was fascinated by the stories her grandmother, mother, aunts and uncles told of him. She used to stare at the portrait that hung in the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vt. -- the cross country ski resort that her mother's family established after immigrating to the United States -- and wonder about the man it depicted.
As it happened, von Trapp had written a memoir of his own. But it was in German, a language Peters did not have the opportunity to study until college.
As a young adult, she finally read the memoir.
"He wrote with such poignancy about the moral conflicts of war," Peters said.
"There's a passage describing a nighttime battleship attack he conducted, the first torpedo attack ever to take place after dark. En route back home, he realized that the men who died actually had a lot in common with him, because they shared a profession. I think it was at that point that he fully appreciated the magnitude of war."
Peters resolved to translate the memoir into English so that other people could learn this side of the von Trapp story. It was a project that would end up spanning 20 years. She was raising two children, and always put their care above her work.
But a few years ago, she began to see that the time had come to wrap up the project. Her two children were approaching their college years and demanded less of her time. More importantly, her mother's elder sisters, on whom Peters relied for help with some of the idiomatic German translations, were in their 90s. She knew she needed to take advantage of their presence while they were still alive.
Peters said her hope in making her grandfather's memoir accessible to an English-speaking audience is to rectify the portrait of him painted in "The Sound of Music."
"People imagine him as cold and militant with his family, and he wasn't like that at all," she said.
"It's true that he summoned them with the same whistle he used to give orders on his submarine, but that's because the grounds of their home in Austria were so extensive that it was the only way of locating them all," said Peters.
"He did not dress them in uniforms and he did not have them march in formation. He was a beloved father to them."
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
Granddaughter of the Austrian baron translates his memoir to round out a portrait
By Nancy Shohet West, Globe Correspondent | March 18, 2007
Until recently, Elizabeth Campbell Peters did not generally tell people that her grandparents were Baron Georg and Baroness Maria von Trapp, the couple whose lives in pre-World War II Austria inspired "The Sound of Music."
"People tend to treat me differently once they find out that my mother is a von Trapp," she said.
Besides, she grew tired of the question that inevitably followed: "Which one was she?" Referring, of course, to the spunky children depicted in the musical and film.
Peters's mother, Eleonore von Trapp Campbell, wasn't any of those seven, who were the offspring of Baron von Trapp and his first wife. Three more children, including Peters's mother, were born after Georg and Maria married; the couple left Europe in 1938 and eventually settled in Vermont.
"'The Sound of Music' is Hollywood's version of my grandmother's memoir," said Peters, who is a Belmont resident and a development officer at Cotting School in Lexington. This is the story that the American public has fallen in love with since its Broadway debut 48 years ago, but there was another account that attracted Peters: that of her grandfather, a military captain.
Peters has translated her grandfather's memoir of his experience in World War I. The book, titled "To the Last Salute: Memoirs of an Austrian U-Boat Commander," lists Georg von Trapp as author and Peters, under her maiden name of Elizabeth M. Campbell, as translator. She also wrote the introduction. It was published by the University of Nebraska Press this month.
Fans of the film remember the Nazi soldiers pounding on the door to demand that von Trapp join Hitler's navy, but many do not stop to think about why Hitler sought him so insistently.
"In World War I, my grandfather was Austria's most decorated U-boat commander," Peters explained. "He was awarded the Knight of the Military Order of Maria Theresa, the highest award bestowed in the Austrian Navy."
Peters never knew her grandfather, who died in 1947, but as a child she was fascinated by the stories her grandmother, mother, aunts and uncles told of him. She used to stare at the portrait that hung in the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vt. -- the cross country ski resort that her mother's family established after immigrating to the United States -- and wonder about the man it depicted.
As it happened, von Trapp had written a memoir of his own. But it was in German, a language Peters did not have the opportunity to study until college.
As a young adult, she finally read the memoir.
"He wrote with such poignancy about the moral conflicts of war," Peters said.
"There's a passage describing a nighttime battleship attack he conducted, the first torpedo attack ever to take place after dark. En route back home, he realized that the men who died actually had a lot in common with him, because they shared a profession. I think it was at that point that he fully appreciated the magnitude of war."
Peters resolved to translate the memoir into English so that other people could learn this side of the von Trapp story. It was a project that would end up spanning 20 years. She was raising two children, and always put their care above her work.
But a few years ago, she began to see that the time had come to wrap up the project. Her two children were approaching their college years and demanded less of her time. More importantly, her mother's elder sisters, on whom Peters relied for help with some of the idiomatic German translations, were in their 90s. She knew she needed to take advantage of their presence while they were still alive.
Peters said her hope in making her grandfather's memoir accessible to an English-speaking audience is to rectify the portrait of him painted in "The Sound of Music."
"People imagine him as cold and militant with his family, and he wasn't like that at all," she said.
"It's true that he summoned them with the same whistle he used to give orders on his submarine, but that's because the grounds of their home in Austria were so extensive that it was the only way of locating them all," said Peters.
"He did not dress them in uniforms and he did not have them march in formation. He was a beloved father to them."
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
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