King Paul I (1901-1964) and Queen Frederika (1917-1981)


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Admittedly, I don't know a great deal about the Greek monarchs - so I am going to take your word on that one.
But wasn't King George I set upon the Greek throne by Russia and Great Britain? And still Constantine preferred to bite the hands that polished his (father's) throne??
 
Admittedly, I don't know a great deal about the Greek monarchs - so I am going to take your word on that one.
But wasn't King George I set upon the Greek throne by Russia and Great Britain? And still Constantine preferred to bite the hands that polished his (father's) throne??

In fact George I was placed there because he had the support of GBritain , Russia AND France. These are the same countries that formed the Allies later. During WWI. Constantine wanted Greece to keep neutrality even though the govermnent disagreed since they thought that they would have teritorrial gains if they took part in the War. This lead to a huge fight. Here I must say that in our History book which is taught in the last class og high school exists this exact phrase:" the King's wish to keep neutrality led to acts that undermined the political system. He developped a secret diplomacy without the government's knowledge, even proceeding in illegal acts( giving classified diplomatic papres to german agens). In 1915, HE caused the resigmnent of the govermnemt twice" Well, I don't see why a king wanting neutrality would act in this way. And the thing is that although many entries in greek history books have caused discussion , from what I know a historian has never raised a doubt about this phrase.
 
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Do you think Queen Frederica's German birth had anything to do her unpopularity in Greece? They have just had to endure her mother-in-law, Queen Sofie.... another German who wasn't well liked on a whole either...
I think that be German was a cause of her unpopularity, but I think that it affected all the European royal houses with menbers of German origin, but I think that another cause was her policy statements.

I think she was so because:

After the Second World War, the aims of all European States was to obtain loans to overcome the serious economic problems suffered by the war, the important was not the form used, the important was obtain it.

The Queen Federik was involved directly in this mission ... She made political statements but Politicians did not bother it, because the aims were obtained

Then when countries began to operate "by itself", the internal politics took great importance, I think that was when the Queen Federik continuous intervening in politics, she continued as before, but circumstances were not the same, her statements became in polemics ...... the circumstances had changed..She was the Queen consort.. and when died King Pavlo she was not Queen,This is further aggravated ..
 
True, we must not forget that even if she acted in an inappropriate way for the Queen Consort of a Constitutional monarchy, many politicians allowed it and even welcomed it because it served their purposes. Later, ouf course , they tried to stop it , but by then it had become a sort of status quo.
 
Specific

A lot of you have commented that Queen Frederika meddled in the political situation by making caustic remarks yet none of you have quoted anything attributable to her.She said little or nothing to be honest but had a great big lot of intellectuals and leftists- on her trail and they watched her every move.The Queen did not harm the country- it was just that time when the standard of living was postwar difficult- and she was resented parading around in couture clothes- and jewels.But by today's standards the Queen really did not have that much..... There was hyperbole where she was concerned going both ways - in favour of her and against her- . Queen Frederika could not have been all that bad if her children have all turned out remarkable and ethical people.Had they given me her tiara and said you be Queen here in Greece, I would have said no thanks.Frederika spoke many languages- she was cultured; devoted to family; had a spiritual side we we rarely see in others;put up with a lot of criticisms that were undeserved. When her heart gave out prematurely it was because she was heartbroken in many ways.
They the government of Greece said they will keep Tatoi Palace- well they can have it as it is a joke of a manor- not a palace; a big house with jumbled archtecture- it has its own airport and there Frederika's children were given twenty four hours permission to land and bury her for her funeral - then leave-.by the back door-
I do not know . I am confounded because Greece was impoverished as a nation pre-war and post war- and they had royalty- Frederika in my opinion became the scapegoat for all their woes at that time.
 
up until now I only came accros online sources concerning Frederica's actual quotes. I will post one here translated in English but because I fully understand that its credibility can be disputed I will try to find a quote coming from a book during the next days

" I think it's time for elections and a new government with Georgios Rallis the internal affaris Minister as prime minister or Sp. Theotokis perhaps" she is supposed to have said that to CIA station chief L.Campell early in 1963.

I never said that Queen Frederica was a bad mother or a bad person as a whole. I only stated that she had strong political opinions and was willing to influence things IF that possible.

Concerning the quotation I posted above I just found and online article titled : "United States Intervention in Post-War Greek Elections: From Civil War to Dictatorship " by Christos Cassimeris posted in the website www.informaworld.com. where there is a relevant mention . In the PDF form of the article . page 10 it is stated:

"Further problems occurred when, in 1963, Karamanlis attempted to
make the Crown and the army subject to the government, but his plan was
not treated with enthusiasm and the Crown forced him to resign. Queen
Frederica openly questioned Karamanlis’ loyalty to the Crown and did not
hesitate to suggest to Lock Campbell, Chief of the CIA Station in Athens,
that it was time for another party to govern Greece and added that in case
of a crisis the Crown would not hesitate to turn to the army for the purpose of​
serving its interests"
 
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All very interesting... I am learning more and more about two figures of the Greek monarchy that I find fascinating, yet have limited knowledge of.
 
This is a fascinating thread and I thank all of you for your information. I've learned so much about the Queen. I confess that all I've known about Frederika was that she was unpopular in Greece especially because she was German. I was reading a book about Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain a few years ago and there were pictures of the State visit to England by King Paul and Queen Frederika, I think in the early Sixties and there were demonstrations and even riots against the Greek couple,but especially the Queen.
 
Oh, yes that incident... I found an article in TIME describing it ( Great Britain : A Foolish Display Friday, Jul. 19, 1963 ).

Apparently the King and the Queen faced demonstrations from the minute they stepped their foot on British soil. Such was the anger for this visit that it was the first time in her 11 years old reign that QEII was actually booed

Here I post a part of the article : "For the royal visit, the Macmillan government mounted a security force that outdid even the Bulganin-Khrushchev welcome in 1956. On hand were 5,000 police, including plainclothesmen disguised in everything from morning coats to overalls. As the royal procession of carriages clip-clopped from Victoria Station, where Elizabeth greeted them, to Buckingham Palace, a woman burst from the crowd and shrieked: "Release my husband!" She turned out to be Mrs. Betty Ambatielos, 45, the English wife of Antonios Ambatielos, a Greek Communist serving a life term for his part in the cival war."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,896880-1,00.html#ixzz0eSgYQcjs

This incident with Ms Ambatielos is more juicy that it appears. Is it not included in the article , but Q Frederica and P Irene were also stopped by Betty Ambatielos when they were in London for the marriage of Alexandra of Kent earlier that year. The Queen got in a heated conversation with Ambatielos and is was said that she was actually slapped by her. Then the demonstrators started chasing her and the Princess and QF stArted running. After a while they stopped exhausted and started ringing the bell of a nearby house. When the landlady opened they bursted in and asked her for refuge until the police arrived .

How! I wonder how this English lady felt. It's not an everyday incident to have two panting royals in your doorstep asking for your hospitality!
 
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............ I confess that all I've known about Frederika was that she was unpopular in Greece especially because she was German.

There is some base to that. It was, in fact, quite embarrassing when (and I don't know exactly when) the picture of QF and her brothers in Nazi-uniform was publicized.
Nonetheless, the fact is that QF was extremely popular until the end of the Civil War. Her unpopularity built up later and gradually, starting in the mid-fifties.
 
Karamanlis loathed the Crown and this was the first step to getting rid of it democratically-if they the Crown were subject to the whims of any passing government then it wasn't quite the monarchy- already loathed as she was Frederika saw this and objected- I always had the impression that Karamanlis resigned because he could not get over the fact that the Queen actually had an opinion-Rallis was pro monarchy- if I remember correctly.
Karamanalis resigned by force?- foxy politician - it worked in his favour however - as he was the one to return and not the royals-Thank you for the clarifications.Much appreciated
 
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First of all we must said something. In Greece at the 60's there were many powers that fighted one another. Everyone importand enough had an agenda and the good of the Country wasn't necesary number 1 priority
what I mean:
Frederica wanted to keep the monarchy influentional enough into the political life
Karamanlis wanted to be indipendant and make his own course ( he was a very ambitious man).
Andreas Papandreou ( another ambitious one) wanted to become a dominal figure into the public life even though if he had to stand up against his father
Papandreou the Elder wanted to create a strong , unified central party with mild opinions, become he hoped that the Kennedy administration would trust him as much as the right parties.
American officers in Greece wanted to make sure that whoever was ruling the country would behave in a way that it would keep up with the USA's policies concerning the Eastern Mediterranean.

Mess , isn't it?

when it comes to Karamanlis and the monarchy , there was a complex relationship. Karamanlis I tend to believe was chosen as a leader for the right, by the amaricans, the right politicians AND the palace because he was a fresh, scandal free figure. After a while of course he wanted to stop being a "pawn" and tried to have his own course.Thinking he was powerful, he stubbornly in many cases collided with the palace. This was intorelable by all those who had chose him , so he was forced to leave embitterd to Paris after resigning.

ps Years after he had his revenge when he played a crucial role in the aboliton of the monarchy. Once again in his agenda there was no number 1" make sure the Greeks stop suffering from the political tension." the was number 1 " make sure to have Frederica and the whole dynasty destroyed" It was a payback:D
 
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Frederika and other royals.

I ve done a little researching in her life the past few days and it appears she also had somehow strained relationships with other royals. She once had made a comment about princess Garce which was quite snotty, saying that "she didn't want to asocciate with an actress who is perfoming at the princess's role" (OUCH! That was a little mean!). She had this huge fight with her mother because , she took her brother's side when he decided to start a legal fight against Viktoria Luise over the family's property. Their relationships were strained for years ( I think in fact Frederika didn't want to invite her to Sofia's marriage but Sofia adored her grandma and put her foot down on that). And last but not least , a quite funny incident with Queen Ena of Spain. During Sofia and Juan Carlos's engagement they had a heated conversation and Queen Frederika started raising her voice and then she started an endless monologue ( voice raised) until Queen Ena iterrupted her and told " Dear , you tend to forget that I am a Queen too"...:lol:

God! She definately was a unique case when it comes to personality , even among her peers!!!!:flowers:
 
During Sofia and Juan Carlos's engagement they had a heated conversation and Queen Frederika started raising her voice and then she started an endless monologue ( voice raised) until Queen Ena iterrupted her and told " Dear , you tend to forget that I am a Queen too"..

That is a great one-liner. Good for Queen Ena
 
First of all we must said something. In Greece at the 60's there were many powers that fighted one another. Everyone importand enough had an agenda and the good of the Country wasn't necesary number 1 priority...
I'm agree with some statements from you. I read a lot of Karamanlis , I read that he had the support of palace and the U.S. .... I read that Karamanlis had the support of King Pavlo, but gradually he started to make reforms in Greece polemics, he lost the support of King and other politicians ..When other politicians began to highlight in Greek politics and these politicians had a strong social support he saw that he walked away from power, his attitude changed with the monarchy.. You're right, everyone wanted power ... the circumstances had changed. As for the problems with her family, these were on issues of inheritance and jewels, she had a right to defend what was hers .I'm agree, Queen Federik interfered in Greek politics and critical statements, and politicians used these statements to attack the institution .... But I don´t want forget that she made an impressive work in Greece, this is awesome ... They made that Greece was in the Marshall plan .... They collaborated directly in the reconstruction of Greece after World War II, they were concerned about the Greek peasants, they fought against communism, they started in Greece a new source of income was tourism ... and much more ..... her work in Greece was awesome, I admire ...
 
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As for the problems with her family, these were on issues of inheritance and jewels, she had a right to defend what was hers ./QUOTE]
Just to get this straight , I don't think that I have the right to Judge the actions she took concerning private matters. I just wished to point out that she wasn't only strong opinionated in public, she was also in private ( the personality I talked about). She was willing to clash with her own mother in order to achieve was she thought was the right thing and she would not compromise for anything else.
 
Yep, when a family has two or more strong personalities, clashes are almost 100% a given. Queen Ena's retort to Frederika was classic and it shows that Ena could match Frederika one on one. Thank you for the cute anecdote Carolina.:flowers:
 
I ve found some photos of frederika in her youth. the first two are the famous photos of her and her brothers in the nazi youth 's uniforms. The last is a sweet photo of her with her brother christian.
By the way , I think that the fact these two photos were used as postcards during the Nazi propaganda proves that Viktoria Luise and Ernest Augustus did have some Nazi sympathies at first. To clear this up from the beggining, I don't think that they were supportive of the crimes that the Nazi regime did. But at first, when Hitler hadn't revealed his true face, they must have seen him as a man who would save Germany from the downhill, eliminate communist treath and re establish order and they might have thought that he would help them and advance their place. I mean, when you let your children become a postcard you can't he got be really neutral can you. And maybe that's why Frederika got so much blame , because her parents were a little supportive towards the nazis at first. What do you think about this?
 

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I do not think Hitler would had restored the monarchy in Germany, I believe that this should be studied according to historical circumstances .. It is obvious that the Communists had become an important political force in Germany and other Europe countries .When Hitler appeared in the German political , many saw him as the antidote to the Communists .... I believe that Ernest Augustus saw that very reason, an antidote against the Communists, and this led him to believe he could hope for restoring the monarchy in Germany, I think the gesture of making public pictures of his children was a way to lure to Hitler ... They believed that Hitler could restore the monarchy in Germany ... but the evolution of Nazism, made see them that the monarchy had no place, Hitler did not worked for the Kaiser, Hitler worked for to be he same "Kaiser"... they saw Hitler as the antidote to communism and the restoration.
I think they (Ernest Augustus and family) saw Hitler as a man who came from humble social classes and they made the mistake of believing that they could manipulate him .
My conclusion, I believe that the family of Queen Federik was not Nazi, I think they dealt with these gestures to lure Hitler to them, in order to manipulate him and achieve the restoration of the throne, but became confused of person, Hitler wanted to be King
.
 
Hitler was a master of propaganda and he probably appealed to people who longed for the good old days but when the mask fell from the monster's face, anyone of decent behavior was appalled. It is hard to say what people truly believed he could or could not do for them. We have politicians today who would like to wield immense power to do as they please but thank God for the internet and public exposure!

Could it simply be that Frederika and her family just saw Hitler as someone who would restore Germany to her prior glory and not necessarily restore the throne?
 
With respect to the above pictures of Frederika and her brothers in Nazi uniform, there was an ill-intended exploitation of the issue. The fact of the matter is that many many non-fascists Germans joined at some point the Hitler youth or other groups, to the same extent that many avowed anticommunists, centrist or conservative Greeks joined at some early point the EAM (National Liberation Front) before it became known that it was totally controlled by the Communist Party.
 
Of course not all people who joined the Hitler youth were not Nazis just like not only communists joined EAM. But the fact that the postcard was publishedto a newspaper controlled by the Nazis led me to think that the children's parents had some sumpathies at some point. That's all. And I mentinoed that maybe that's why Frederika got so blame , because at some point her family seemed sympathetic towards Hitler. But many people hadn't realised waht he trully was at first. Didn't Churcill I think appraise him once? And if you can fool Churcill , well you must be good at it ....

By the way, I always thought that frederika was not a Nazi in ideology because of one little thing.The fact that she was permitted to marry the Heir of the Greek Throne who was supported by Britain. I really doubt that George II would have given permission To Paul to marry a woman who would ever theaten to put an end to the British support they received. And if she was a Nazi, the British would have strongly disagreed to the marriage. Am I right?:flowers:
 
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I don't know that her personal beliefs would have been a bar that the British government would have raised in opposition to the marriage. It was well known that Hitler admired the Duke and Duchess of Windsor but if Frederika was a Nazi sympathizer, I think that would have been a good reason for any Greek royal to be opposed to the marriage, regardless of what the Brits wanted.
 
Here are some photos I ve found ( Flickr and Gettyimages ):
1) an official photo of Diadoch Paul and his wife ( this is one of the few pictures I ve seen Frederika wearing the Diamond Prussian Tiara).
2) Frederika with baby Sophia on Sophia's first birthday
3) With king Paul
4) during an officila ball at Tatoi
 

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:previous: Paul was such a charmer (picture # 1 picture says it all) and quiet too. He and the Greek people interacted very well. In a lvideotaped interview to journalist S. Theodorakis, princess Irene said, "My mother loved my father". No Greek ever uttered a bitter word against him.
Frederika, albeit strong-minded, was not bad either. Her flaws that cost, in part at least, her son the Throne were:
1) Her up and outspokenness (that only harmed her in the end), and
2) Her insistence to mingle in politics and mingle with politicians
At a time that social and political changes were sweeping Europe, she should have followed a different course.
 
I do believe that she should have followed another course and I think the biggest tragedy for all was that the was the wrong queen consort ( concerning her behaviour in politics in some aspects ) in the wrong political environment at the wrong time.
some more photos :
 

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Yes, the wrong consort can cause immeasureable harm. Some consorts do good, such as Elizabeth the Queen Mother, who softened the royal family and made them seem more accessible and in touch with the common man or woman. Others, such as Empress Alexandra of Russia, and Frederika, cause the public to dislike the royal family, despite each woman's good intentions.
 
Yes, the wrong consort can cause immeasureable harm. Some consorts do good, such as Elizabeth the Queen Mother, who softened the royal family and made them seem more accessible and in touch with the common man or woman. Others, such as Empress Alexandra of Russia, and Frederika, cause the public to dislike the royal family, despite each woman's good intentions.

Some people are just not fitted for certain positions. Alexandra might have been a wonderfull person, worthy mother and a an ideal match for Nicholas, but she was clearly not suitable to be the wife of the Tsar and Autocrat of all Russians. If he was a Grand Duke or A prince , their life would have been very different and certain things in the Russian history would also have been different.

Same goes to Frederika. She was a charming beautifull woman, intelligent, good mother and wife and a person of spiritual wonders, but being a Queen in Greece turned in the end catastrophic both for her and her family . If she was married to another royal house, for example to the British Royal Family, no one would have faced the same situation. I doubt the British Royals would have permitted her to declare her political opinions in public, but even if she did, she would have merely been viewed by the steady political system as " obnoxious". Greece on the other hand was an entirely different situation....
 
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