This study is about the real Austrian Trapp family until 1939. Using scores of contemporaneous sources, this fully referenced book for the first time presents Maria Trapp's own family: the Kutscheras, the Reiners, and her foster family, the Kramers. Moreover, the first chapter critically analyzes Maria's tales about her childhood and youth up to her wedding with Georg (von) Trapp. The second chapter covers Georg, his family, his activities in war and business, as well as the family choir started in 1934. Several misconceptions, from Georg having been a baron to his alleged anti-fascism, get corrected here, too. The third chapter overturns the central myth of the Trapp family story: there is no evidence that the Trapps ever received offers by the Nazis or resisted them; on the contrary, Georg unsuccessfully tried to solicit business in Germany. Nor were the Trapps in danger of persecution, or fled from Austria. Filled with details as well as context, this book is different from everything you have ever seen, heard, or read about the Trapp family. But please note that this book is not about the adaptations of the family's stories, such as "The Sound of Music", nor does it contain illustrations.

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 I was the black sheep of the community, and I had been warned many times by the Mistress of Novices that I could not race down the staircase like that, taking two and three steps at a time. #2 I was sent to Aigen, Austria, to teach Baron von Trapp’s daughter. I was to leave the world and give up everything, but I did it wholeheartedly. #3 I was bowing farewell to the other three candidates, when I took in with one last glance the picture of the large, oblong room with the six windows, the white-curtained cells along the wall, and the huge, old-fashioned Kachelofen, the European tile stove. #4 I was on the road that led down the hill on which Saint Erentrudis had built her castle of God in the eighth century. I was still higher than the steeples of the churches. I looked over the quaint old Grabendächer.

The Trapp Family Singers, their years in Europe and America, and music camp at Stowe, Vermont.

Follows the fortunes and misfortunes of the musical von Trapp family who fled Austria because of political problems and eventually opened The Trapp Family Music Camp in Vermont.

Alone Against Hitler tells the lesser-known but pivotal story of former Austrian chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg. As one of the first leaders to defy Adolf Hitler during the buildup to WWII, his story is of lasting importance. Though young and untested upon entering office, von Schuschnigg courageously rejected the rising tide of Austrian Nazism, insisting on equal rights and respect for the Jewish minority. Jack Bray surveys the geopolitical conditions in Austria during the march to war, highlighting von Schuschnigg’s valiant four-year struggle to prevent his nearly defenseless small nation from being taken over from within by unrelenting, violent Austrian Nazis. Von Schuschnigg’s encounters with Hitler and other central characters of 1930s Germany (Himmler, Hess, Ribbentrop, Hindenburg, Goring, and Papen, as well as their ally, Mussolini) are recounted in scenes of high drama and vivid detail. For his daring defiance, and his refusal of offers to flee the Nazi invasion, von Schuschnigg paid a dear price—seven years in Nazi captivity and abuse to the point of breakdown. In one of Hitler’s final acts from the bunker where he would ultimately take his own life, the trembling fuhrer ordered von Schuschnigg to be killed. Just as von Schuschnigg was set to be executed, with the war at its eleventh hour, he received a near-miraculous deliverance. Although Kurt von Schuschnigg’s name may be unfamiliar now, he was for a brief moment at the center of world history, even gracing the cover of Time magazine in 1938. Alone Against Hitler profiles an oft-forgotten but crucially important figure in WWII history, celebrating the legacy of a man who bravely fought against evil.

How does smallness shape a country and its relations with other countries? In comparative case studies that cover a diverse set of regions, Small Countries describes a number of similar problems with which small countries must cope, on domestic levels as well as in their transnational and global encounters.