Frederica of Hanover, Greece’s Grey Eminence

King Paul and Queen Frederica. Image from Wikimedia Commons

 Friederike Luise Thyra Victoria Margarita Sophia Olga Cecilia Isabella Christa was born on April 18, 1917 in Blankenburg (Harz), Duchy of Brunswick, German Empire. Born a princess of Hanover, Great Britain and Ireland, and Brunswick-Lüneburg, Frederica was the only daughter and third of five children of Ernest Augustus, Prince of Hanover and Duke of Brunswick and Princess Victoria Louise. Their union put an end to the rift that existed between the House of Hohenzollern and the House of Hanover after the Prussian annexation of Hanover in 1866. Her father, inherited the Duchy of Brunswick after her grandfather, the Crown Prince of Hanover, renounced his claim to the Duchy of Brunswick.  As a descendant of Queen Victoria, Frederica was the 34th in the line of succession to the British throne when she was born.

In 1934, Adolf Hitler, then being in power as Führer in Germany, had the goal of linking the German and British royal houses. Consequently, he requested for the marriage of the then 17-year-old Frederica and the Prince of Wales, who was 22 years her senior. Her parents were “shattered.” The thought of marrying their daughter to their British cousin never entered their minds. They also did not want to “put any such pressure” on the princess.

Frederica met her future husband, Prince Paul of Greece, her mother’s paternal first cousin, in 1935 while studying in Florence, Italy. The latter proposed to the princess while he was in Berlin for 1936 Summer Olympics, however their engagement was not officially announced until a year later, on September 28, 1937. Three months later, the couple received the permission of the British monarch, King George VI, pursuant to the Royal Marriages Act 1772.

Princess Frederica of Hanover, about 1935. Image from Wikimedia Commons

Frederica and Paul wedded on January 9, 1938 at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens. As her husband was heir presumptive to his childless elder brother, King George II, Frederica became Hereditary Princess of Greece.

They had three children altogether: the future Queen Sophia of Spain, the future King Constantine II and Princess Irene of Greece and Denmark.

At the height of the Second World War, Frederica and the rest of the Greek Royal Family were evacuated to Crete before evacuating again and setting up a government-in-exile in London. They also moved to South Africa, and afterwards settled in Egypt. Following the end of the war and the 1946 Greek referendum that reinstated King George, Frederica and Paul returned to their villa in Psychiko.

When her husband ascended the Greek throne as King Paul I on April 1, 1947 following the death of George II, Frederica became queen consort. She was heavily criticized for her German ancestry. Left-wing politicians in Greece would often stress the fact that the Kaiser was her grandfather, and that her brothers were members of the SS. She was also denounced as “very Prussian” and “very Nazi”.

Queen Frederica of Greece on the cover of Time magazine.

In November 1947, while she was in London representing her sick husband at the wedding of Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark and Princess Elizabeth, Winston Churchill commented on the Kaiser being her grandfather. Although Queen Frederica acknowledged the fact, she also reminded the prime minister that she descended from Queen Victoria, and that her father would have become the British king has Britain operated under the Salic Law, which only allowed men to inherit the crown.

In 1953, then Queen Frederica graced the cover of Time magazine. During the Civil War, she set up Queen’s Camps or Child Cities—53 camps scattered all throughout Greece, and which kidnapped children of former partisans and DSE members. They were taught anticommunism, and a lot of them ended up working in tobacco and textile factories. Reports claimed that while in the said camps, the children were being illegally adopted by American families, which were proven to be true.

Her unconstitutional and arbitrary interventions in Greek politics led to her being described as “inherently undemocratic”. She would often clash with democratically elected officials and even campaigned against the election of Alexander Papagos as Greek prime minister.  Queen Frederica’s harshly criticized undemocratic ways was said to have significantly strengthened republican sentiments.

Following her husband’s death in 1964 and her son’s ascension and marriage to Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark, now Queen Dowager Frederica withdrew from most of her public duties in favor of her daughter-in-law. Still, she was a center of controversy, accused y the press of being an éminence grise. She eventually moved to the countryside and led an almost reclusive life, though she continued attending family gatherings, such as the baptisms of her grandchildren.

After the monarchy was abolished in 1973, Frederica and the rest of the Greek royal family yet again went into exile. Following an eye surgery, Frederica died on February 6, 1981 in Madrid, Spain. She was 63 years old. She was buried in the Royal Cemetery at Tatoi Palace.