The ABBA singer who was born from an experiment to expand the Aryan race and is the daughter of a “selected” woman and a Nazi soldier

Frida, the brunette from the group with the heavenly voice that immortalized the song “Dancing Queen,” had had a childhood marked by orphanhood. She only knew that her father had been a soldier, until a German fan connected her with her uncle Alfred Haase, who had been stationed in Norway until early 1945 and turned out to be her father. Later, her grandmother provided more information about her dark past.

By Matias Bauso

The Nazi occupation of Norway during World War II, among many misfortunes, injustices and death, left two great things. One was the end Quisling, the surname of the fascist Norwegian politician who led the local puppet government that obeyed Berlin; from that moment on Quisling became the generic name to refer to collaborators and traitors. The other pleasant consequence of that invasion was the birth of Anni-Frid Lyngstadt, Frida, singer with a heavenly voice, the last A of ABBA, the brunette of the group that immortalized Dancing Queen.

Frida was born about five months after the end of the war, after the Nazi rout. Synni, her mother, was 19 years old and had become pregnant with a German soldier, before being sent back to Germany to attempt a last stand against the inevitable Allied advance. Once it was clear that the Allies would not be able to enter Europe from the north, many of their troops were brought from the Scandinavian countries to Germany to reinforce their battered battalions.

The end of the war brought shame to those women who had become girlfriends or had had relations with the men of the invaders. And first the belly and then that fragile, dark-haired baby were the clear proof of the Synni's betrayalMany women were persecuted, beaten, insulted and even lynched. Synni and her mother, Frida's grandmother, were no exception. They were considered traitors. They couldn't find work, they didn't receive any help and even many shops refused to sell them food. They were spat on and insulted in the street. Two years later the women decided to emigrate, to try to start over in another country. They travelled to Sweden. They wanted little Frida to grow up in a different environment.

However Synni fell ill and died After a while, many believe that sadness played a role. The grandmother and little Frida were left alone. “We were very alone. I was convinced that there was something wrong with me. I had no friends, nobody loved me. Maybe I didn’t deserve to be loved,” Frida said much later. When the girl grew up, she showed two obsessions. On the one hand, she wanted to know what had happened to her parents, why her friends had children and she didn’t. On the other hand, she wanted to know music. All in her life was singing. From a very early age she showed a natural talent for her voice. On stage she transformed into another person.

The grandmother, without giving too many details about why they lived in Sweden, explained about the mother's illness and told her that her father had died when his ship was sunk by a submarine at the end of the war. She painted him as some kind of war hero, without giving too many details.

Frida began singing professionally at the age of 13. At first her repertoire consisted of jazz standards in English. Later she tackled multiple genres. Soon she reached the swedish television She began to perform regularly live. She won every contest in Sweden. She soon made it to Swedish television. And she got her first record deal. She married young and had two children, but the marriage didn't last long. At one of her performances she met Benny andersson, a young musician and producer. They fell in love. He would become one of the B's of ABBA and her future husband.

The two met another couple with a musical disposition and the AB combination in their names, Bjorn ulvaeus y Agnetha Fältskog. The four formed ABBA, although in the early days, Frida came and went from the group; she was not permanently with them. She already had a solid solo career and he did not dare to leave it aside for the chance of success with the new band. At the moment when ABBA entered the studio to record her first songs, Frida had already released a couple of solo albums (full of Swedish covers of Anglo-Saxon pop hits) and had managed to get two of her songs to the top of the Swedish charts.

Then came what everyone knows: the conquest of Sweden, then of Europe and finally of the world. Mamma Mía, Chiquitita, The winner takes it all, Waterllo, Fernando (the Swedish version was first a hit for Frida as a soloist), Dancing Queen and many more.

Gold records, platinum records, magazine covers, global tours, millions and also public exposure.

In 1977, a German fan after reading Frida's orphanage story, discovered that her uncle Alfred Haase He was Frida's father. All the details fitted. His name was the same and Alfred had been stationed in Norway until early 1945. At first Frida did not believe that the information was true. She was convinced that her father had died in the middle of the frozen ocean. Her husband Benny Anderson was the one who arranged the meeting.

Alfred Haase was married and had two children. He met Frida and saw each other a few times. But the relationship did not prosper. Many years later, already with ABBA separated, Frida was asked about her father and she said that, despite the separation and distance, if she had known him in her childhood or adolescence, the situation and the bond could have been different. But she felt that she already It was very late to get to know him, that she no longer needed him, that this German man was a complete stranger to her.

Then it was time to connect the data and for the confession of her grandmother and some relatives. Frida, being a world star, member of the best-selling group of the moment, discovered that she had been part of a perverse Nazi eugenics program, the Lebensborn.

The program intended expand the Aryan race throughout Europe. It was launched in Nazi-occupied territories and was controlled by SS officers. It called for German soldiers and SS members to father daughters with young women from other lands. The only condition was that the women were of pure race, Aryan or Nordic. The program offered from economic assistance, adoption programs and the creation of orphanages for children to live in. Mothers received a kind of subsidy, financial help for food and diapers, or the assurance that their children would be raised in a state institute and given up for adoption. The young women who participated in the program often did so out of necessity or forced by German officials who camouflaged rapes and abuses within the huge and imprecise purse of Lebensborn.

It didn't matter. At the end of the war, women who had given birth to or had been pregnant by Nazi soldiers were vilified by the people of their countries. This was the case with Frida's mother, who was not even able to take advantage of the assistance programmes because her daughter was born five months after the German surrender. It is estimated that there were around 8.000 Lebensborn children in Norway.

The program also served to justify mass kidnappings of children and deportations of thousands of Polish children, among others.

Frida discovered her origins when she was a world star. She moved on and rarely wanted to talk about it again. It did not help that, at the time of her first contact with her father, when Benny Andersson managed to get Alfred Haase to travel to Sweden, some German tabloids obtained photos of the meeting and information about those initial meetings. She always continued to use her mother's surname.

Success came within ABBA an implosion. Without reaching the extremes of scandal of Fleetwood Mac, The two couples within the band ended up separating. Too much pressure, too much time together, too many temptations and weariness. Agnetha had some panic attacks and severe problems with alcohol that she managed to overcome several years later. Benny also became an alcoholic. The group ended up separating at the end of 1982 when the chemistry seemed to have died out and when sales of the new recordings were not as good as before, they were far from monopolizing the charts as they had been five years before.

Frida kept a low profile for a long time, hiding from the spotlight. When several former Norwegian Lebensborn children started a class action against the government of their country at the beginning of this century, they compulsively put her at the head of the campaign, as the face of the campaign. Frida had not given her consent and asked for her image to be removed, but she decided not to support the request, which was later rejected by the Norwegian courts (although the government later gave each of the actors compensation equivalent to 10.000 dollars).

Frida became a member of the nobility. She fell in love and married Henri Ruzo Reus of Plauen, a Swedish prince. They were years of much love until tragedy broke into Frida's life. Her daughter Anne Lise, from Frida's first marriage, died in a traffic accident in New York. But that was not all. A year later, Prince Reus died of lymphatic cancer. He was about to turn 50.

Frida has just turned 79. She lives in Switzerland. In recent years she has made a few charity appearances and at a tribute gala for ABBA. She prefers to remain unnoticed and leave her tumultuous and tragic past behind her.

Source: INFOBAE