Princess Birgitta: Annihilated by the death of her grandson, she tells …

At the dawn of her 80th birthday, the Swedish princess traces with aplomb a life punctuated by family dramas …
Long-established on the island of Majorca, which does not prevent her from returning to Scandinavia for the important events of the life of the royal clan, Princess Birgitta of Sweden is not dead, contrary to what Announced inadvertently a Spanish newspaper last November following the revelation of the suicide of Princess Birgitta … of Prussia (widow of Prince Michael of Prussia, great-grandson of the emperor William II, disappeared in 2014) .
No, on the contrary, the sister of King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden is in great shape – it culpabiliserait in almost thinking of their sister Princess Christina, suffering from leukemia – and is preparing to celebrate its 80th anniversary, Thursday, January 19, 2017, at the palace in Stockholm. As we approach this milestone, the Swedish journal Svensk Damtidning went just before Christmas to meet with her in the Balearic Islands, for a rich maintenance sometimes painful confidences. His meeting and marriage to Prince Johann Georg of Hohenzollern, said Hansi, who died last March , the illness of her younger sister and the loss of his little son just born – a drama whose evocation still upsets: It was a conversation in all intimacy that Princess Birgitta had with the journalist Anna von Koch.
FROM LIGHTNING TO STROKE
Second (after Princess Margaretha) of the five children of Prince Gustaf Adolf of Sweden, died in a plane crash when she was 10 years old, and Princess Sibylla, descendant of Queen Victoria disappeared in 1972 at age 64, Princess Birgitta remembered for her interlocutor her love at first sight for Prince Johann Georg. It was in 1959 during a cocktail in Münich, where the young woman of 22 years was in linguistic stay with his childhood friend Cathy Hägglöf. ” A thunderbolt! After three weeks, I knew I was going to marry her ,” she recalls, telling the time, back in Stockholm, she told her sisters in their dumbfounded Showing a picture of Hansi, who had of course not yet asked for anything. Besides, the story would have ended there, revealing Birgitta have had a crazy adventure of three days with ” a charming Italian ” at the Rome Olympics in 1960. ” The man of her dreams .” The charmer even offered her a ring as a token of his love. When, some time afterwards, Prince Johann Georg saw his sweetheart again and noticed the jewel, he tore it from his finger and threw it – it was finished with the beautiful Italian, which, according to Birgitta, ended much later murdered.
We were so different …
The couple married in May and July 1961, between the royal palace of Stockholm and that of the Hohenzollern in Sigmaringen. Three children were born – Prince Carl Christian, 54, Princess Désirée, 53, and Prince Hubertus, 50 – and five grandchildren, but the conjugal life will also have its share of disappointments, on which Birgitta returns bluntly: ” the moment I was the happiest, it was probably just after marriage and the birth of my first child there, it was happiness. ” she says. A short-lived happiness, in particular because of the repeated absences of Hansi, art historian and highly requested expert, who devoted herself to his passion leaving her alone with the children in Munich. Her passion for her, for the sport, he disdained: ” He often said, ‘You and your stupid sport’, it was sad to hear that, because sport is good for young people ,” she recalls with A bit of bitterness.
In fact, Birgitta and Hansi married too quickly, as she notes, saying: ” . We really were totally different, but that you do not know when you fall in love ” Still, the couple chose not to separate or divorce: ” It was not even matter because it was easier that way and everyone felt good; the kids felt good.. ” even in recent years, when still living in it Bavaria and her in Mallorca … In 2011, a year after being together at the marriage of the Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden, they even celebrated their golden wedding! The princess was also with Johann Georg when he died at 83 years after a brief illness in March 2016 and in December, for the first time away from Munich and without him Unfolded Christmas with family …
The worst I have ever experienced
A few months after the disappearance of her husband, the disease strikes again in the entourage of Birgitta: survivor of breast cancer, Princess Christina is attacked by leukemia. The news is scarce regarding the current state of the sister of the King of Sweden: ” It’s sad I often talk with her and she feels pretty good actually. She says. She is strong I show him that. I am here (…) We can do nothing more, sometimes ashamed to feel so good, when I told Titti, she said, ‘No, you must not . But this is what I feel, life is so unfair. ”
In 2001, Prince Lennart, the first child of his younger son, Prince Hubertus, and his brother-in-law, his wife Uta Maria König, died within four days after birth: ” the worst thing I ever experienced, except the death of my father He was only three days everything was wrong with him and we have everything.. just had time to baptize him. Stay there watching her children suffer is the worst I have experienced. My son … “the voice of Princess Birgitta breaks and tears assail, the Preventing it from continuing, still annihilated by the memory of the drama, fifteen years later. Hubertus and Uta Maria have managed to overcome their grief, over time and with the arrival of a little girl they adopted in 2009, Vivianne. ” It was not easy for them, but they are brave and I admire them ,” praises this mom and granny hen – which, at Christmas time, was worried for his daughter Desiree princess party make Diving in Bora-Bora.
At 80, Birgitta of Sweden is ready for new chapters, cheerful as much as possible.