Sweden's German Queen Turns 60

As chief hostess and interpreter for the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Silvia Renate Sommerlath looked after a range of celebrities: German Chancellor Willy Brandt, British Prime Minister Edward Heath and Monaco’s royal couple, among others.

It was the Swedish crown prince, however, who won her heart by staring at her through his binoculars. “My husband once said: It just clicked,” Silvia recently told German public television. “I believe in destiny and it was no coincidence that we met.”

A commoner fit to be queen

Having spent 10 years of her childhood in her mother’s native Brazil and being fluent in seven languages, the dark-haired young woman seemed worldly enough to become queen. That only became possible after Carl Gustav became king in 1973, however, as Swedish crown princes lose their claim to the throne if they marry a commoner.

The wedding took place on June 19, 1976, and Silvia quickly became one of the most popular members of the Swedish royal family, helping to ensure its survival. While many of her new countrymen had previously called for abolishing the monarchy, about 70 percent of Swedes now want to preserve it.

Children’s advocate

However, some have criticized the queen for her outspoken comments on political issues, such as calling for harsher punishments for child molesters.

It doesn’t seem to have detracted Silvia, who is herself a mother of three – Crown Princess Victoria, 26, Prince Carl Philip, 24, and Princess Madeleine, 21. “If I can help children, I’ll keep interfering vigorously,” she said in an interview on Germany’s ARD television.

“The goal is to promote the right of every child to its childhood and to work for better living conditions for children in danger,” Silvia wrote on the Web site of World Childhood Foundation, a charity she created in 1999. “We must fight against the extreme material, social and emotional poverty in which they live.” During the first four years of its existence, the foundation provided aid to more than 125,000 children in Brazil alone.

Dreaming of art history

Silvia’s birthday wish, a round table on the current problems of children in Swedish society, already took place at the royal palace in Stockholm on Dec. 12. "It was a wonderful gathering," said Gunilla von Arbin, the World Childhood Foundation's secretary general.

She added that the establishement of an Internet resource guide for Swedish children in need called "red pages" was announced at the meeting. "It's a new social initiative that has been developed for Her Majesty," von Arbin told DW-WORLD.

Before Tuesday's official birthday celebrations, the queen and her family departed to northern Sweden for a couple of days, where her children had booked her into a hotel made out of ice, according to news reports.

She readily admits that it is not always easy being queen and recently told a Swedish news agency about her secret dream of starting something completely new. “What I’d really like to do is study art history” like her youngest daughter, Silvia said. “Maybe one day I’ll have enough time to sit down at a university desk.”