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Queen Silvia of Sweden

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(Redirected from Silvia Sommerlath)

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Silvia (born Silvia Renate Sommerlath; 23 December 1943) is Queen of Sweden as the wife of King Carl XVI Gustaf. She has held this title since her marriage to Carl XVI Gustaf in 1976. The king and queen have three children: Crown Princess Victoria, Prince Carl Philip, and Princess Madeleine.

Childhood and parentageEdit

Silvia Renate Sommerlath was born in Heidelberg, Germany, on 23 December 1943,<ref name=KungahusetTheQueen>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> the only daughter of Alice (née Soares de Toledo) and Walther Sommerlath. Her father was German and her mother Brazilian.<ref name="weinraubnytimes">Template:Cite news</ref>

She has one older brother, Ralf Sommerlath (born 1929). Her other brothers were Walther Sommerlath, who died in 2020, and Jörg Sommerlath, who died in 2006. The Mother-Child House Jörg Sommerlath in Berlin, operated by Queen Silvia's World Childhood Foundation,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> is named after her brother.Template:Citation needed

She attended grammar school in Düsseldorf, finishing her Abitur in 1963; and attended the Munich School of Interpreting from 1965 to 1969, majoring in Spanish.<ref name=KungahusetTheQueen/>

She has some fluency in Swedish Sign Language, a national sign language used by the deaf community in Sweden.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> She is a trained interpreter and Swedish is her sixth language. She speaks her native German, her mother's language of Portuguese, as well as French, Spanish, and English.<ref name="weinraubnytimes" />

Marriage and familyEdit

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During the 1972 Summer Olympics, Sommerlath met Crown Prince Carl Gustaf. At the time, she was leading a marketing campaign for the city of Munich. Sommerlath and the other Olympic hostesses wore sky-blue dirndls to promote Bavarian cultural identity.<ref name="comeback">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="macht">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="horn">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="typisch">Template:Cite news</ref> After the death of King Gustaf VI Adolf on 15 September 1973, Carl XVI Gustaf succeeded to the throne.

He and Sommerlath announced their engagement on 12 March 1976 and were married three months later on 19 June 1976 in Stockholm Cathedral.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> It was the first marriage of a reigning Swedish monarch since 1797. The wedding was preceded the evening before by a Royal Variety Performance, where the Swedish musical group ABBA performed "Dancing Queen" for the first time as a tribute to Sweden's future queen.<ref> Template:YouTube </ref>

The King and Queen have three children and nine grandchildren:

In February 2021, Silvia was taken to hospital after she fractured her right wrist in a fall.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Father's Nazi linksEdit

In July 2002, the Queen became the subject of international curiosity when an article published in the syndicalist newspaper Arbetaren reported that German state archives recorded that the Queen's father, Walther Sommerlath, joined the Nazi party's foreign wing, the NSDAP/AO, in 1934, when he was living in Brazil and working for a German steel company.<ref>Template:Cite newsTemplate:Cbignore</ref> In December 2010, Queen Silvia wrote a letter of complaint to Jan Scherman, the CEO of TV4, the network that had aired a documentary about her father's alleged Nazi past.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Queen Silvia commissioned a report from World War II expert Erik Norberg, a choice that was criticised due to Norberg having ties to the royal family. In his report, Norberg said that the Queen's father had in fact helped the owner of the steel-fabrication plant, a Jewish businessperson, escape from Germany by taking over the factory.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In a December 2011 interview for Sweden's public service broadcaster Sveriges Television, Silvia called the media's handling of the information about her father "character assassination".<ref>Åter med kungafamiljen, SVT, 29 December 2011.</ref>

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First Lady Michelle Obama and Queen Silvia meet in the Yellow Oval Room in 2009.

Charity involvementEdit

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Queen Silvia visits Gustav Adolfi Gümnaasium in Tallinn, Estonia, in 1992.

Queen Silvia established Mentor International in 1994 in collaboration with the World Health Organization. Her vision was to offer mentoring as inspiration, empowerment, and motivation for young people to make healthy life choices and view their futures more positively. Mentor's work has been recognized by the United Nations Office on Drugs & Crime, the Organization of American States, and the Council of Europe. She is now an honorary board member of Mentor Foundation.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

She was also a co-founder of the World Childhood Foundation in 1999, having been inspired by her work as Patron of the first World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children held in Stockholm.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> She has also been involved in the Global Child Forum, which she helped initiate, as a keynote speaker in several forums.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Her commitment to the work with dementia and the care of the elderly at the end of life is also well known and respected. On her initiative, Silviahemmet was established in Stockholm. It works to educate hospital personnel in how to work with people suffering from dementia, and also initiates research in the area.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

She chairs the Royal Wedding Fund, which supports research in sports and athletics for disabled young people<ref name=kungahuset>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and the Queen Silvia Jubilee Fund for research on children and disability.<ref name=kungahuset/>

Queen Silvia holds honorary positions in the Swedish Amateur Athletic Association, the Children's Cancer Foundation of Sweden and Save the Children Sweden.<ref name=kungahuset/>

In popular cultureEdit

In May 2025, Queen Silvia made a surprise appearance on national television in Sweden to honor entertainer-designer Christer Lindarw in a program about Lindarw's life and career.<ref>Article by Benjamin Andrée in Expressen 2025-05-07</ref>

Honours and armsEdit

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NationalEdit

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ForeignEdit

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AwardsEdit

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Honorary doctoratesEdit

Queen Silvia has been awarded a number of honorary doctorates, most recently for her work on dementia.

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ReferencesEdit

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External linksEdit

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