Did Georg and Elsa really love each other?

Welcome!!!
I would not say platonic, I am sure they had intimate relations. If you notice their body language during their discussion in the garden before the rowboat scene, it is obvious that they are a couple. He tells her that he considers Elsa his saviour. If they had no relations, but only were social friends, they would not talk to each other like that or hug. Elsa has also gone to the villa to meet the children as her relationship with the captain gets more and more serious. Practically the Captain takes the following step after forming his relationship with her and before the engagement/marriage where they all become a family. The fact that they are not passionate towards each other, I think it is due to the fact that the movie is a family movie addressed to all ages...it is a fairy tale, pure magic, not pretty woman for instance haha..so that they kiss all the time. 

If they love each other?? hmmmm I think in their way and according to their social values and status, yes. But a conventional type of love and sympathy. Their are widowers, rich aristocrats, they share a wonderful time together, and thats it, nothing more nothing less...''not too sour not too sweet, just too pink''. As an image, they are a perfect match. His first wife was also a rich aristocrat, so I believe sometimes, though I am not 100% sure, that Elsa looks like Agathe in a certain way.. well-bred, perfect hostess, polished, subdued to her husband and family values. 

I have wondered many times why Agathe had 7 children, with a naval officer for husband who was almost always away from home. I tend to think that she had all these children in order to comfort her solitude and feel less lonely while he was absent from home. She filled the house with children so she would have laughing, music in the house, playing, nothing that would remind her his absence. And when the war came to its end, Georg was a national hero and was going to get retired, she died leaving him all alone in a huge villa with seven children. 
Maria comes from a totally different environment but she has a loving vivid spirit. She wants desperately to belong somewhere. Image is out of her concerns. And yet she managed to achieve what Agathe and Elsa failed to do, to form a united loving family who all stay together despite all the calamities and disasters, using music and playing as the decisive liaison.

I believe that even in case Austria was against the nazis, Georg would not have gone to the war either. What is your opinion on this? do you think that he would go to fight against the nazis? I believe no, because he could implement himself in the anti-nazi forces of other countries fighting against Germany, if he wanted to fight. But he did not want to participate in battles. He preferred becoming a singer with his family and travelling to USA. 

2 very interesting points!

I always thought that he picked Elsa because she was so different from Agathe, not because she reminded him of her. I imagine Agathe to be rich and sophisticated (just as Elsa is), but more of a hands on mother, less concerned with appearances. I think Georg picked Elsa because he doesn't want anything around him that reminds him of Agathe, so he chose a Vienna party girl instead of a loving mother/housewife. I think Maria is unlike anyone he has ever met. 

Would he have been able to resist going to war if Austria were fighting the Nazis. Wow. Maybe? His priorities have shifted now. He isn't the reckless youth that assumed nothing bad could ever happen to him or his family. I think he would want to stay home.  But he is such a patriot that it would be hard for him to not be a part of it all. Maybe he could still be working for the navy, but not actually out on the water? 
  

I still think it was platonic!  That's the awesome thing about this forum. We all have such different ways of seeing the same scenes. I think that even though they are touching each other and flirting with each other in the lake scene, that they have not progressed farther than that. I think he's too broken still over losing Agathe. 

Welcome captainfraulein!

I agree that Agathe was probably a "stay-at-home mum", whose children were probably at the centre of her world.

Maybe Georg's fascination with Elsa was because she was so different - an elegant, very sophisticated party girl with a city social life.

But it was only when the reality became apparent that his interest in her paled:not interested in the kids, not interested in the home or the country life. Then Maria turned up...

I'm new too (high five!!)

I think that Georg was more in love with the idea of Elsa: she's wealthy, aristocratic, graceful, witty, charming, etc. but he was not in love with /her/, if you catch my drift (!!!) I think that, based on their mannerisms in the scene before the rowboat, they were more of friends with benefits than a couple. Normal friends wouldn't tease their friends the way that Georg and Elsa teased each other. They must have either really liked each other or were intimate with each other to a certain extent.