{"id":206467,"date":"2025-06-23T01:19:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-23T01:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/206467\/"},"modified":"2025-06-23T01:19:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T01:19:09","slug":"abba-legends-agony-over-secret-nazi-past-that-still-haunts-her-celebrity-news-showbiz-tv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/206467\/","title":{"rendered":"ABBA legend’s agony over secret Nazi past that ‘still haunts her’ | Celebrity News | Showbiz & TV"},"content":{"rendered":"

ABBA<\/a> singer Anni-Frid Lyngstad<\/a> has spoken of the \u201cincomprehensible grief\u201d that has followed her since childhood, as a new biography reveals the extent of the pain she endured due to her father\u2019s links to Nazi<\/a> Germany.<\/p>\n

Frida, who rose to fame in the 1970s as one quarter of the Swedish pop group ABBA, was born in Norway in 1945 to a 19-year-old mother and a Nazi sergeant from Germany<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Her father, Alfred Haase, was part of Hitler\u2019s army stationed in Norway during the war. Her mother Synni fell in love with him, unaware that he had a wife and child back in Germany.<\/p>\n

Before even giving birth, Frida\u2019s mother became the subject of local abuse and shaming for her relationship with a German soldier. She was spat at in the street and labelled a \u201chorizontal collaborator\u201d. Her daughter, Frida, was called \u201cNazi spawn\u201d.<\/p>\n

In the years following the war, thousands of children born to German soldiers and Norwegian women were ostracised. The SS breeding programme, known as Lebensborn, had encouraged soldiers to father children with what the Nazis viewed as \u201cracially pure\u201d women. Norway was considered ideal territory.<\/p>\n

In an extract of Jan Gradvall’s The Story of ABBA: Melancholy Undercover published on the Mail Online<\/a>, he notes that Synni believed Alfred would come back for them. However, he left and he never came back.<\/p>\n

With the situation becoming increasingly difficult, Frida\u2019s grandmother Anni took her to Sweden to start a new life, while Synni stayed behind to work. Plans for the family to reunite were cut short when Synni died of kidney failure in 1947, before her daughter\u2019s second birthday. She was just 21.<\/p>\n

Frida was raised by her grandmother in Sweden, but affection did not come easily. \u201cWe were two lonely people together,\u201d she later said. \u201cThere were no hugs or kisses.\u201d<\/p>\n

She grew up believing her father had died during the war. It wasn\u2019t until 1977, when Frida was 32 and ABBA were at the height of their fame, that she discovered he was still alive.<\/p>\n

The revelation came after a German girl \u2013 the daughter of Frida\u2019s half-brother \u2013 read an interview and believed the singer might be related to her grandfather. A meeting was arranged in West Germany.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought he was a nice man,\u201d Frida said, \u201cbut it still mostly felt strange to me. I was 32 years old and had a family and children of my own. Obviously we didn\u2019t develop the kind of connection we might have if we had known each other my entire life.\u201d<\/p>\n

The book also details further personal tragedies in the star\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

In 1998, Frida\u2019s daughter Ann Lise-Lotte died in a car accident in the United States, shortly before her 31st birthday. Less than a year later, Frida\u2019s third husband, Prince Heinrich Ruzzo Reuss von Plauen, died from cancer at the age of 49. They had married in 1992.<\/p>\n

Then, in the autumn of 2023, Frida\u2019s grandson Jonathan also passed away following a battle with cancer.<\/p>\n

Reflecting on the weight of so much loss, Frida said: \u201cIt took a very long time. It took many years of incomprehensible grief.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the continued speculation around a third Mamma Mia film and the enduring success of ABBA\u2019s Voyage virtual concert in London, Gradvall\u2019s new book offers a look behind the polished performances and pop stardom to a life marked by secrecy, loss and survival.<\/p>\n

The Story of ABBA: Melancholy Undercover by Jan Gradvall is published by St. Martin\u2019s Press.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ABBA singer Anni-Frid Lyngstad has spoken of the \u201cincomprehensible grief\u201d that has followed her since childhood, as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[53431,83016,77,1824,269,83017,80011,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-206467","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-abba","9":"tag-anni-frid-lyngstad","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-germany","12":"tag-music","13":"tag-nazi-past","14":"tag-personal-tragedy","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114730052235665380","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}