Fresh scandal for Swedish royal family after Nazi past of Queen’s father is revealed by TV documentary
By Allan Hall In BerlinLast updated at 4:29 PM on 1st December 2010
Sweden’s royal family - recovering from revelations of the secret affair the king enjoyed with a pop singer - has been thrown into fresh turmoil over the Nazi past of the queen’s father.
Swedish TV4’s investigative programme Kalla fakta has broadcast the first of a two-part documentary detailing how Queen Silvia‘s late father grew rich producing armaments in a factory stolen from the Jews.
When she married in 1976 the Queen’s German father Walter Sommerlath denied he had ever been a member of the Nazi party. That fiction was exposed some years later by a Swedish newspaper which proved he joined the movement in 1934.
Weeks after revelations of the King's adultery, Sweden's royal family has again been rocked by scandal as a documentary reveals Queen Silvia's father's Nazi ties
She said he did not take the factory over from Jewish owners.
Now the revelations about Sommerlath, who was living in Brazil at the time he joined the Nazis and only returned to Germany on the eve of war, have plunged the royals into a new crisis.
The Swedish TV4 documentary details how Queen Silvia's late father Walter Sommerlath, seen here with the Queen around the time of her wedding, grew rich producing armaments in a factory stolen from the Jews
When Silvia married Gustaf in 1976, her German father lied and denied he had ever been a member of the Nazi party
SWEDISH SUPPORT FOR THE NAZIS
Readers of Stieg Larsson's Girl With The Dragon Tattoo trilogy will be aware of the links between Sweden and the Nazis.
As Hitler rose to power in Germany in the early Thirties, the National Socialist Workers Party was set up by Sven Olof Lindholm in 1933 to mirror its views.
A newspaper was set up as a mouthpiece for fascist views, a Nordic Youth set up along the lines of the Hitler Youth and the swastika even featured for a time on the party's emblem.
The more established National League of Sweden was also undergoing a resurgence at that time with members peaking at 40,000.
During the war itself, the country declared itself neutral and maintained iron ore exports to Germany and allowed the Wehrmacht to use its transport network.
The monarch, Gustav V (pictured above right with Herman Goering in the 1930s) enjoyed strong links with high-ranking members of the SS and Goering was even presented with the Swedish Order Of The Sword.
Sweden used its position of influence for some good, however, and saved the lives of 8,000 Danish Jews and 44,000 Norwegians smuggled into the country.
After 1943, it sought to distance itself from the Germans. Support waned and the Nazi-sympathising parties dissolved. A core clung on and in 1956, the Nordic Reich Party was established.
Dozens of parties have subsequently dotted the political scene, including the White Aryan Resistance (WAR), whose activities, included a spate of car bombings, were investigated by Larsson.
In 1994, on Hitler's 110th birthday no less, that group transformed into the National Socialist Front and that kept the WAR flag flying until 2008.
Jimmie Akesson's Democrats started life in 1998, emerging from the Keep Sweden Swedish movement supported largely by skinheads in Stockholm and the south of the country, but has steadily steered its way to respectability.
They switched the party's symbol from a blue and yellow badge with a sail, mirroring the national flag, to that of an orange cloudberry, a plant that grows in the northern hemisphere.
As Hitler rose to power in Germany in the early Thirties, the National Socialist Workers Party was set up by Sven Olof Lindholm in 1933 to mirror its views.
A newspaper was set up as a mouthpiece for fascist views, a Nordic Youth set up along the lines of the Hitler Youth and the swastika even featured for a time on the party's emblem.
The more established National League of Sweden was also undergoing a resurgence at that time with members peaking at 40,000.
During the war itself, the country declared itself neutral and maintained iron ore exports to Germany and allowed the Wehrmacht to use its transport network.
The monarch, Gustav V (pictured above right with Herman Goering in the 1930s) enjoyed strong links with high-ranking members of the SS and Goering was even presented with the Swedish Order Of The Sword.
Sweden used its position of influence for some good, however, and saved the lives of 8,000 Danish Jews and 44,000 Norwegians smuggled into the country.
After 1943, it sought to distance itself from the Germans. Support waned and the Nazi-sympathising parties dissolved. A core clung on and in 1956, the Nordic Reich Party was established.
Dozens of parties have subsequently dotted the political scene, including the White Aryan Resistance (WAR), whose activities, included a spate of car bombings, were investigated by Larsson.
In 1994, on Hitler's 110th birthday no less, that group transformed into the National Socialist Front and that kept the WAR flag flying until 2008.
Jimmie Akesson's Democrats started life in 1998, emerging from the Keep Sweden Swedish movement supported largely by skinheads in Stockholm and the south of the country, but has steadily steered its way to respectability.
They switched the party's symbol from a blue and yellow badge with a sail, mirroring the national flag, to that of an orange cloudberry, a plant that grows in the northern hemisphere.
'Also, Queen Silvia’s father worked during his time in Brazil for the German company Acos-Burderus-do Brasil-Ltda, which used wartime prisoners as slave labour in Nazi Germany.'
Sommelath resettled in Berlin and on 24 May 1939 he took over the company Wechsler & Hennig.
Documents found by Kalla fakta show that Sommerlath took over the firm from Efim Wechsler, a Jew, and that this was part of the so-called 'Ayranisation' of such enterprises according to the Nuremberg Laws which stripped Jews of their rights and property.
He bought it at a knock-down price, as was common at the time. Jews needed the money to try to escape from Germany.
The documents also show that his factory produced items which were used by the Luftwaffe - ack-ack guns - and also parts for tanks.
Her brother Ralf told the newspaper Expressen that the Queen is 'terribly upset' and he calls the documentary 'lies and slanders'.
He fumed that if all Swedes are like Mats Deland, one of the three documentary makers, he will never again visit Sweden and will tell his sister to 'come home.'
The queen’s attempts earlier this year to play down the Nazi past of her father have led to fierce criticism of her in the media now, both in Germany and Sweden.
She has refused all comment but a statement was issued by the palace ahead of part two of the documentary which runs on Sunday night this coming weekend.
'Concerning the discussions about Walther Sommerlath in the media, which deal with events which took place before the Queen was born, the Queen has no reason to comment on the content of the programme.
'Of course The Queen is sorry about her father becoming a member of the National Socialist Party in 1934.
'The Queen first got knowledge of his membership in adulthood, and she never had the opportunity to discuss this with her father.'
Her husband King Carl XVI Gustaf was recently exposed in a book over a secret affair he had with a pop singer.
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