Only the sex life of King Carl XVI. Gustaf, now Queen Silvia's father's Nazi past - the Swedish royal family never comes to rest. The German-born Queen Silvia had stopped performing together with her husband after the sex scandal reports. It was only last Wednesday that the royal family showed up together for the first time to signal unity. But now Queen Silvia is also criticized. Dishonesty regarding her father Walther Sommerlath's National Socialist past is accused by the largest Swedish private broadcaster TV4.
In the first part of a series of reports on the “Cold Facts” program broadcast on prime time on Sunday, the father is attributed a much more active role in National Socialism than was previously known. According to the private broadcaster TV4 in 1939, Walther Sommerlath, who died in 1990, is said to have taken over the "aryanized" operation of a Jew in Berlin and allegedly produced war equipment for German air defense. So far, it was known that the father of the Heidelberg-born queen had joined the NSDAP in 1934.
The left-wing Swedish newspaper "Arbetaren" first revealed the membership of Queen Silvia's father in the NSDAP's foreign organization, called "AO", in 2003. At that time the topic was hushed up by the royal court. The queen made no comments. Only seven years later, in the context of the wedding celebrations for Crown Princess Victoria with her ex-fitness instructor Daniel in spring 2010, did Queen Silvia first comment on the subject. Her father's party membership was based on the circumstances of the time, she said. "It was a machine, wasn't it? He was never politically active or a soldier. He was responsible for the factory employees, but was never politically active. If you went against it, you were immediately against the whole machine, ”she said in the wedding program of TV4. At the time, the press accused her of "naivety" and a trivialization. Queen Silvia's brother, Ralf Sommerlath, is interviewed by phone in the current program. Back then it was "apparently a good thing" to be a party member, he told the broadcaster. His father had told him that the company in Berlin was not a Jewish one, he said to the broadcaster, even in disbelief.
In its reportage program, TV4 then draws a very controversial picture of the queen's father. It said: "Cold Facts" can reveal that Walther Sommerlath, father of the Queen, took part in the persecution of the Jews. We have found documents in archives in Berlin and Brazil that show that Queen Silvia is wrong when she claims that her father was not politically active, ”says the broadcaster. The program reveals that Walther Sommerlath was one of the first to join the Brazilian foreign organization of the NSDAP, the AO, on December 1, 1934. Membership number 3592030. Only 3.5 percent of the approximately 80,000 ethnic Germans in Brazil were NS at the time - Been a party member, says TV4. So there is no trace of a gigantic “machinery”. But it gets worse.
Walther Sommerlath is said to have supported the expropriation of Jews in Berlin. A few months before the outbreak of war, in April 1939, the German-Brazilian returnee and businessman took over the Wechsler & Hennig metal goods factory in Berlin-Kreuzberg, Wassertorstrasse 14. It had just been expropriated. It belonged to the owner Efim Wechsler. After the expropriation, according to official tabs in the Berlin Federal Archives, Sommerlath supplied war equipment for German air defense, including vehicles, optics and vision devices.
The court declined to receive an opinion on the program: "The queen has nothing more to say about this."
Silvia's brother Ralf Sommerlath now says that he was exploited by TV4 to involuntarily give weight to a conspiracy directed against the whole royal family. It's not about the Queen's father, it's about an attack on the monarchy, TV4 quoted him on Monday.
Meanwhile, the backing for King Carl XVI. Gustaf significantly after the publication of the scandal biography. According to a survey by the daily "Dagens Nyheter", only 51 percent of the subjects are behind the monarch. In 2009 it was 64 percent. Especially Swedish women between the ages of 18 and 45 no longer want to see the female hero sitting on the throne. The faction of those who are demanding an early replacement by his still very popular daughter, Crown Princess Victoria, has risen significantly, from 17 to 31 percent, according to the survey. The monarchy itself remains on firm ground. Even though the supporters' camp has shrunk by 10 percent since 2005, 70 percent want Sweden to keep its monarchy.
