Josephine’s heiress: Sylvia Sommerlath has gone from hostess at the Olympics to Queen of Sweden

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The most experienced queen consort in a European monarchy — Sylvia of Sweden — celebrates its 79th birthday today. She received the crown in 1976 by marrying King Charles XVI Gustav. But her path was not strewn with roses.

Despite the fact that Silvia Renata Sommerlath was born in the German city of Heidelberg, her childhood and youth were spent in Sao Paulo in Brazil. Silvia’s father Walter Sommerlath moved there in the early 1920s as an employee of a subsidiary of the German steel group Röchling. It was there that he met the local beauty Alice Soares de Toledo. According to rumors, one of her ancestors was the illegitimate king of Portugal, Afonso IIIwho ruled from 1248 to 1279. Another famous ancestor of Sylvia — Indian leader Tibiris, who converted to Christianity. He led, among other things, the Tupinikime tribe, who lived in the area of ​​u200bu200bmodern Sao Paulo.

In December 1925 they were married, their sons Ralph and Walter Ludwig were born, and in 1938 — just before the start of World War II — they moved to Nazi Germany. That’s where the little ones were born. — son Hans Jörg and daughter Sylvia.

Historians still cannot agree on what prompted Walter Sommerlath to return to his homeland. According to some reports, he was a member of the National Socialist Party — in 1934 he joined the foreign organization of the NSDAP. And returning to Germany, he did not stay long in his native Heidelberg. In 1939, the Sommerlats moved to Berlin, where Silvia’s father until 1943 ran a business confiscated by the Nazis from its Jewish owners. The company produced hair dryers and other hairdressing accessories, but since 1940 it began to produce weapons for the Wehrmacht, and was eventually bombed by Allied aircraft.

Before the wedding of Sylvia with the Swedish king, her father gave an interview to the local newspaper expressen. In it, he denied any involvement in the Nazi Party and assured the Swedes that his participation in the war was limited to the management of this plant. But it did not help. Already after his death, in 2002, the media began to write again about his membership in the NSDAP. The queen despaired of proving her father’s innocence on her own, and commissioned a well-known World War II expert, Eric Norberg, to report on Walter Sommerlath’s past. He found out that, in fact, the Queen’s father helped the former owner of the plant, Efim Veksler, to escape from Germany to Brazil, and his enterprise was exchanged for a house and hacienda in Sao Paulo and land assets there.

And although this story cost Sylvia a lot of nerves, to the credit of King Carl Gustav, it should be said that the possible Nazi past of the future father-in-law did not bother him at all. Perhaps, among other things, because his father Prince Gustav Adolf was suspected of sympathizing with the Nazis, because he, as a representative of the Swedish royal family, met with Adolf Hitler and Hermann Goering. And his maternal grandfather, Karl Eduard, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, was a high-ranking member of the Nazi Party. But above all, because Sylvia made a deafening impression on him in their very first meeting.

Childhood in Brazil passed under the supervision of brothers. Once, when I was 13 years old, a friend invited me to a dance. But for decency, my brothers went with me. It was humiliating. But this situation was with many of my Brazilian friends. And after moving to Germany it was worse. It was hard for me because I had to switch to German friends who could leave the house in the evening hours, and I was forbidden to do this. It was impossible to go with friends to the theater or cinema. I got freedom only after graduating from university. But even then it was possible to go for a walk only in a large company, and sometimes accompanied by one of the brothers.

After returning to Germany in 1957, Silvia studied at a school in Düsseldorf, then entered the Faculty of Translation in Munich, where she specialized in Spanish. Today she speaks six languages: her native German and Portuguese, Swedish, Spanish, English and French. After graduating from university, the girl worked for some time at the consulate of Argentina. Her dream was to teach at school, but she decided to become a translator. And, thanks to this, at the Summer Olympics in Munich in 1972, she met the Swedish Crown Prince Carl Gustav.

Silvia Sommerlath took a job with the Munich Promotion Committee as an interpreter and hostess in the VIP sector. The heir to the Swedish throne, who was sitting on the podium in this sector, as the press wrote, was so impressed that he looked not at the opening ceremony of the Olympics, but at the beauty in the Bavarian national costume. Moreover, they say, he even pointed a lorgnette at her, although she was only a few meters away. Carl Gustav couldn’t stop thinking about her. But the future king of Sweden turned out to be very shy and could not decide on an acquaintance. He first asked his adjutant to call her and make an appointment. But she didn’t agree. Then, during one of the evening receptions as part of the games, he asked the organizers that the hostess, whom he saw at the opening, would bring him a glass of wine. And although this was not part of the duties of Sylvia, she did not refuse her leaders. Then the crown prince invited her on a date, followed by another meeting, a full-fledged romance began. In an interview, recalling the history of their acquaintance, he explained:

I saw her and something clicked in my head.

In 1973, 27-year-old Carl Gustav, in love, ascended the throne. It became more and more difficult for him to hide his relationship with the German translator from the press. Biographers of this couple claim that Sylvia tried to confuse the paparazzi by periodically appearing in a light wig. She recalled:

Despite all our efforts, rumors about a three-year acquaintance began to seep into the press.

They announced their engagement on March 12, 1976, and got married three months later, on June 19, 1976, in Stockholm Cathedral. Sylvia was in a modest dress from Christian Diorin tiara Cameowhich Napoleon Bonaparte once ordered for his beloved Queen Josephine. It was the first marriage of a reigning Swedish monarch since 1797. And on the eve of the wedding, a festive concert was held, at which the Swedish band ABBA performed the song “Dancing Queen” for the first time. — as a tribute to the future monarch. By the way, Silvia, being a Brazilian, loves to dance and plays the guitar.

Wedding day — one of the most important in my life. Only the birth of our children can be compared to this moment when the king and I became husband and wife. A lot of people asked me if I was worried, but I really wasn’t. I was happy and felt peace and inner harmony. The sensations were as if my future husband and I were alone in the whole world, and there was no one around.

I would like to end this story with the words “and they lived happily ever after”, and so, most likely, they are. In Sweden, they fell in love with the new queen, and when she complained in an interview that she was freezing in the royal palace, compassionate subjects sent her dozens of scarves. But one cannot ignore the fact that even as a queen, Sylvia had a chance to experience the greatest happiness — the happiness of motherhood, and, according to rumors, the bitterness of betrayal.

In 2010, a book by Swedish journalists, The Unwitting Monarch, about the secret life of King Charles, was published. XVI Gustav. It reported that he had sex parties and had an affair with local singer Camilla Henemark. Sylvia, according to journalists, knew about this, but could not do anything: her husband was in love like a boy, and dreamed of running away with his beloved to an island in French Polynesia. What is true and what is not, the world never knew. There were no official statements from the king. But, they say, this test only brought the royal family closer.

Karl XVI Gustav and his queen have three children: the heir to the throne, Crown Princess Victoria, Prince Carl Philip and Princess Madeleine. All of them created their own families, gave birth to grandchildren to the monarchs. Silvia — grandmother of eight princes and princesses. She says this about her life:

Sometimes it’s worth stopping for a second and looking back — for a time that has passed. They often say: “Oh, how time flies.” But it is important to think about what was in this time, what it brought in the form of events and experiences.