Frederica

Frederica (born April 18, 1917, Blankenburg, Saxony, Germany—died February 6, 1981, Madrid, Spain) was the queen of Greece (1947–64) who married Crown Prince Paul of Greece in 1938 and became queen on his accession to the throne in 1947. She lived in exile following the seizure of power by a military junta in 1967.

A direct descendant of both Queen Victoria and Kaiser Wilhelm II, she was accused of pro-Nazi sympathies before World War II but won respect for her courage during the war and for her devoted efforts in welfare work during the years of hardship and instability following the liberation. Frederica’s enemies, however, saw her as an autocratic power behind the throne; they were particularly concerned about her influence when her 23-year-old son, Constantine, became king after the death of King Paul in 1964. Her political influence made her the focus of an antimonarchist attack even though Constantine remained a popular figure. Eight months after the seizure of power in April 1967 by a military junta, the king attempted an unsuccessful countercoup, and the royal family was forced into exile. Frederica went to Rome and then to India to study philosophy, realizing that her intervention could only harm Constantine’s chances of regaining the throne. She wrote an autobiography entitled A Measure of Understanding (1971).