If I can provide my own opinions on this matter, regarding Queen Sofia.
While by many, the Queen is considered cold, aloof, etc., one must take into account her upbringing and education.
Do not forget that the Queen received a strict royal upbringing, one that was re-inforced in her everyday her duties as a Princess, as the daughter of a reigning King. She was instilled with Royal duty, Royal Duty, Royal Duty. There was no leeway. Furthermore, the situation in then conservative Greece, made it that the royal children were very sheltered, and were required to uphold certain ideals and certain codes of behavior.
For instance, as a teenager, her brother, then Crown Prince Constantine, was bad-mouthed, simply because he wanted to frequent the "bouzoukia" night clubs, that had become the rage in the 50s.
They say Juan Carlos is the total opposite, happy go lucky, funny, carefree, etc. Quite frankly, as a child and adolescent, he didn't have the constraints that Sofia had, since he wasn't a Prince of a Reigning House, nor slated to take over the Throne of Spain till he was almost 30! This is quite different from Sofia, who had to deal with Royal Life from the minute she was born, and mostly importantly, from the age of 8, when her father became King.
The fact that she puts duty above all else, her duty as Queen of Spain, her duty to the Spaniards, is highly commendable. Even more so, her abilities as a very hands on mother.
The very few traces of her truly personal non-Queen side that we are able to catch, clearly shows how truthful and warm the Queen can be.
I mean, look at her trips to Greece, when the Greeks flock around her, clearly in awe and charmed by her, as she walks around her fellow countrymen like she never left. And this, in a country with people that turn all colors of the rainbow at the mention of her brother's name!!
In regards to Queen Frederica, that Nazi business is total non-sense in my opinion. After all, she spent a lot of her youth in Austria, which was clearly out of the Nazi path until the forced Aunshluss, which didn't occur until 1938 anyway, and by that time, she was already married in Greece.
Like Marlene Koenig mentioned, all aristocrats had to be members of the Nazi party, or force losing their status and property, their liberty.
Does anyone nowadays fault Putin for being a former KGB member?
It also neglects the fact that her father, Prince Ernst-August, consulted Queen Mary of the UK, who advised him to send Frederica to Italy, to get away from the Nazis.
Read some of her letters to her parents, as the Nazis and Italians were invading Greece, and you get a sense of where her priorities lay.
Regards to all,
