FREDERIKA OF HANOVER

(Redirected from Queen Frederika)

'Frederika of Hanover' (''Friederike Luise Thyra Viktoria Margarete Sophie Olga Cecile Isabelle Christa'', Princess of Hanover, Duchess of Brunswick and Lunenburg) (Greek:Φρειδερίκη Βασίλισσα της Ελλάδας) (1917-1981) was Queen Consort of King Paul I of the Hellenes (1947-1964) as ''Queen Frideriki of the Hellenes'' (βασίλισσα Φρειδερίκη των Ελλήνων).

Contents

Birth and Geneology

Marriage

War and Exile

Reign

Queen Mother

Exile

Death

Birth and Geneology

Frederika was born on April 18 1917 in Blankenburg, Harz, Germany. She was daughter of Ernest Augustus III, Duke of Brunswick and Princess Viktoria Luise of Prussia, the only daughter of German Emperor William II and Augusta Viktoria of Schleswig-Holstein.
Through her maternal grandfather Frederika was a great-granddaughter of German Emperor Frederick III and Empress Victoria, Victoria, Princess Royal, eldest daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
Through this relationship Frederika was a distant cousin of the United Kingdom's Queen Elizabeth II and also of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. As a descendant of George III of the United Kingdom she was, at birth, 34th in the line of succession to the British throne although she had no British rank or title.

Marriage

In 1936 Prince Paul, heir apparent to the Greek throne, later Paul I of the Hellenes proposed to her in Berlin when he was there to see the 1936 Summer Olympics. Their engagement was announced officially on September 28, 1937. On January 9, 1938 they married in Athens. Prince Paul was the son of King Constantine I and Queen Sophie of Prussia, sister of German Emperor William II (therefore he was a great-grandson of Queen Victoria and a second cousin to Frederika).
During the early part of their marriage they resided at Villa Psychiko in the suburbs of Athens. Ten months after their marriage their first child was born on November 2, 1938: Sophia, the future Queen Sofia of Spain. On June 2, 1940 their son and heir, Constantine was born.

War and Exile

At the peak of World War II, in April, 1941 the Greek Royal Family had to evacuate to Crete in a Sunderland flying boat. In exile, King George II and the rest of the Greek Royal Family settled in South Africa. Here Frederika's last child, Princess Irene, was born on May 11, 1942. The South African leader, General Jan Smuts, served as her godfather.
Shortly afterwards the German forces attacked Crete. Frederika and her family were forced to evacuate again, setting up a government-in-exile office in London. The family eventually settled in Egypt in February of 1944.
On September 1, 1946 the Greek people decided by referendum to restore King George to the throne. The Crown Prince and Crown Princess returned to their villa in Psychiko.

Reign

On April 1, 1947 George II died. Frederika and her husband ascended the throne as King Paul I and Queen Frederika of The Hellenes. Communist political instability in Northern Greece led to into the Greek Civil War. The King and Queen toured Northern Greece under severe security to try to appeal for loyalty in the summer of 1947.
During the civil war Queen Frederika set the Queen's Camps or Child-cities (translation of: Παιδο(υ)πόλεις / Paidopoleis or Paidupoleis) a network of 53 Camps around Greece where she would gather mostly orphans and children of poor families. These camps admirably provided much needed shelter, food, and education to these children who were aged 3 years to adolescence. Many children who were abducted by communist forces during the civil war were taken against their parents' will into countries behind the Iron Curtain with an aim at communist re-education and as a means of recruiting rebels for the communist cause. This cause included the partition of Greece into a northern communist state. It is estimated by sources including the United Nations and the International Red Cross that 28 000 children were taken by the communists to Albania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union. Most children were never returned after the civil war ended in the communist defeat. Many of the children who managed to return with the help of the International and Greek Red Crosses were placed in these Queen's Camps with the personal support of the Queen. Furthermore, many children from earthquake ravaged cities in Greece during the early 1950s were accepted into the Paidopoleis.
The role of these Queen's Camps is disputed by the left-wing as a means of propaganda by the monarchy through the educational program. The Queen's Camps were a way to fend for the children - victims of the civil war. Some communist sources have always insisted that many children were illegally adopted by American families while they were in the Paidopoleis. To date there has not been any credible evidence that any child was illegally adopted from the Queen's Camps. Conversely, there are hundreds of personal accounts and written testimonies from children who grew up in the Paidopoleis. These testimonies describe a program of emotional and educational support from the staff involved. Queen Frederika personally visited these camps many times to review the children's program and meet the needs of the children and/or their families. According to the Greek Royal Family's Historic Recordover 33,000 children passed through these Queen's Camps. In the years following the civil war, these children were returned to their families or next of kin after they completed their (usually) high school education.
The King and Queen worked tirelessly for Greece. The Greek Civil War ended in August, 1949. The Sovereigns took this opportunity to strengthen the monarchy, they paid official visits to Marshal Josip Broz Tito in Belgrade, the Presidents Luigi Einaudi of Italy in Rome, Theodor Heuss of West Germany, Bechara El Khoury of Lebanon, Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia, Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari of India, King George VI of the United Kingdom, and the United States as guest of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. However at home in Greece Queen Frederika was unfairly targeted by the opposition, because as a girl she had belonged, as all German girls were forced to, to a Bund Deutscher Madel girl's branch ofHitler Youth group. While at school in Italy she was said to have been heard defending Nazi Germany. This is totally unsubstantiated. Three of her brothers served in the Wehrmacht. Queen Frederika was of course always loyal to Greece from the time of her marriage. Others argue given the Hitler dictatorship, it would be an unwise parent in 1930s Germany who did not comply with the order that their offspring must join the Hitler Youth. She would have been about the only non-Jewish German child not to have complied with the Nazi directive. Her critics on the left did not care to face the reality of life in Nazi Germany.
Her November 16, 1953 appearance in ''Life'' as America's guest was taken on one of the many state visits she paid around the world. Also that year she appeared on the cover of ''Time''. On May 14, 1962 her eldest daughter Sofia married Infante Juan Carlos of Spain, (later King Juan Carlos I of Spain) in Athens.

Queen Mother

On March 6, 1964 King Paul died of cancer, and her son ascended the throne as Constantine II. He married Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark later that year on September 18. Queen Frederika, now Queen Mother, attended many royal events including the christenings of her grandchildren in both Spain and Greece.

Exile

Constantine's clashes with the centrist George Papandreou, senior were blamed by critics for causing the destabilisation that led to a military coup on April 21, 1967. This cannot be substantiated in fact. After a clumsily organised counter-coup by the King failed, he was forced to flee into exile. On June 1, 1973 the regime of the colonels illegally abolished the Greek Monarchy. The new head-of-state was President of Greece George Papadopoulos.
The dictatorship ended on July 24, 1974. Without allowing the King to return or restoring the legitimate Greek form of government, constitutional monarchy, a plebiscite was held in 1974 and resulted in the abolition of the monarchy.

Death

Queen Frederika died on February 6, 1981 in exile in Madrid during ophthalmic surgery. In its obituary of the Queen, ''The New York Times'' reported incorrectly that she died during "eyelid surgery," which led to frequent but unsubstantiated rumors that she died while undergoing plastic surgery. Her real cause of death was a heart attack while undergoing the removal of cataracts.
She was interred at Tatoi (the Royal family's palace and burial ground in Greece). Her son and his family were allowed to attend the service but had to leave immediately afterwards.