Some parts of Johan T Lindwall's article about princess Sibylla:
Sweden didn't receive their new princess with open arms. Germany's role in World War II brought hatred, and Sibylla with her German background was particularly vulnerable and beset because she didn't learn Swedish properly. Hatred was a while so strong that she received anonymous threatening letters.
- She was so young when she came here to a foreign country and she got stuck in a very intense family life. She gave birth incessantly, her deliveries were difficult and she felt bad for all pregnancies. She had the enormous pressure to herself at any cost give birth to an heir, a prince. And so it came only girls all the time!, Princess Christina told in an interview in Svenska Dagbladet.
Only when she gave birth to Carl Gustaf in 1946 the succession was secured and the little princesses could for a short time to enjoy the harmony with their baby brother at Haga Palace. Until that January day in 1947 when Prince Gustaf Adolf died. The plane crash turned the reality of the family upside down. The princess didn't talk with her children about that their father had died.
- She never told me that my father had died, and it took me five or six years to understand that I didn't have a father anymore. I feel no resentment or bitterness towards my mother, because I think I understand her. She was in despair herself and it was a terrible shock to her, Princess Christina told to Svenska Dagbladet.
- It was our mom's way of coping with the situation, be able to live her life. We wouldn't talk about the matter. So it was just like that. Of course it wasn't good for us children. It would have been much better to be able to talk about my father's death, Princess Birgitta said in an interview.
Sibylla spoke to journalist Margit Vinberg about longing for her husband: "When my husband died, I felt like the floor fell under my feet. Such a happiness in the accident that she isn't alone, she has her children, said the people around me when my husband died. Many said it also directly to me and of course it was meant as a kind of consolation. But I would have liked to shout out my loneliness."
For Haga princesses and Prince Carl Gustaf the distance to their mother was growing. They didn't even stay in the same apartment as Princess Sibylla. The rescue was nanny Ingrid "Nenne" Björnberg. At first she lived with the children in a special floor at Haga Palace. Sibylla isolated to the point that she only met her children once a day. At breakfast they got to go down to wish "good morning". In reality it was Nenne who took care of the siblings.
Princess Sibylla saw how the children came closer and closer to the nanny, and it bothered her:
"Our mother was sometimes terribly jealous of her, for it was to Nenne we went with our small and major concerns. This, however, had a perfectly natural explanation. Our mother was forced to spend much time on the court duties and was often away from home on different missions, princess Birgitta wrote in her memoirs.
- She was probably not so great just as a mother, Princess Birgitta told in an interview in Expressen in 1997 with Jonas Sima.
Her grandchildren didn't bring some tenderness to Sibylla. When Birgitta had children and visited the palace they were refused at first to sit at the dinner table.
- In this case, I take the kids with me and go home, I replied. Then mom gave in a little, Birgitta told.
The family left Haga Palace in 1950 and moved into the Royal Palace. There, the nightmare continued with Sibylla who came to feel more and more misunderstood in Sweden. She was mocked for her family ties with Nazi Germany and was at odds with the Swedish people. In her last interview before she passed away in 1972 in intestinal cancer, princess Sibylla said that she was not worried about the "death" but "how the Swedes would remember her."
Kungen övergavs av sin mamma prinsessan Sibylla _ Nyheter _ Expressen
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