Princess Theodora of Greece and Denmark began life in a sunny world of orange trees and cypress groves. Born in 1906, she was the second daughter of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg. In the family, she was affectionately called “Dolla,” a playful child with a vivid imagination.
Her early years at Tatoi, the royal family’s estate north of Athens, were peaceful. She played in the vast gardens with her older sister, Margarita. The family grew quickly, with younger sisters Cecilie arriving in 1911 and Sophie in 1914.
That quiet world did not last. The Balkan Wars broke out in 1912, and her father was called to duty as an officer while her mother cared for wounded soldiers. In March 1913, tragedy struck when her grandfather, King George I, was assassinated in Thessaloniki. Theodora was only six years old.
The family inherited Mon Repos, a villa on Corfu, and spent a happy summer there in 1914. The girls played at being archaeologists, digging up ancient pottery and bronze fragments near the estate. It was a brief moment of joy before the world changed again.
During World War I, political tensions in Greece escalated. In December 1916, French warships bombarded Athens, and ten-year-old Theodora hid with her sisters and mother in the palace cellars. By June 1917, the family was forced into exile, beginning Theodora’s first life as a refugee.
They settled in Switzerland, where Theodora grew close to her sister Margarita. The two were inseparable, spending their days hiking in the mountains. Though the scenery was beautiful, they longed for home. In 1920, the family was finally allowed to return to Greece and to their beloved Mon Repos.
On June 10, 1921, Theodora’s mother gave birth to a son, Philip. Theodora was fifteen years old. A year later, the family traveled to England for the wedding of their uncle, Louis Mountbatten, to the wealthy Edwina Ashley. Theodora and her sisters served as bridesmaids. For a few weeks, she experienced a world of elegant dresses and grand gatherings.
The return to stability did not last. In December 1922, a British warship waited off the coast of Corfu to evacuate the family. Prince Andrew had been arrested and faced a military tribunal, with the worst-case sentence being execution. He survived, but the price was permanent exile. The family fled with only what they could carry, and baby Philip slept in a makeshift crib made from an orange crate.
They settled in Saint-Cloud near Paris, in a house next to the estate of Princess Marie Bonaparte, a wealthy relative who supported the family. Marie paid for the children’s education. Theodora studied archaeology and art history in Paris, an interest she had first discovered on the beaches of Corfu.
In 1929, Theodora’s mother, Alice, began to change dramatically. She fell into a severe psychological crisis, convinced she had healing powers and received divine messages. In the spring of 1930, the family had Alice committed to a sanatorium in Kreuzlingen, Switzerland. Theodora visited her mother there repeatedly, though the meetings were not always warm.
Within months, the sisters married one after another. Sophie married in December 1930, Cecilie in February 1931, and Margarita shortly after. Theodora was the last to marry. She wed Berthold von Baden, son of the last Imperial Chancellor of Germany, in August 1931. Her mother, still in treatment, was notably absent from the wedding.
Theodora moved to Salem Castle on Lake Constance with her husband. After years of exile, she finally had a stable home. She had three children: Margarita in 1932, Maximilian in 1933, and Ludwig in 1937.
In 1933, Theodora and Berthold brought her twelve-year-old brother Philip to live with them in Salem. He attended school there, and for a time, Salem became his home too. But Germany was changing. The Nazis came to power that year, and the school’s co-founder, Kurt Hahn, was arrested. After international protests, he was released but forced to flee to Britain. Salem was no longer safe for Philip, and he left for England in 1934.
In July 1937, Theodora received a visit from her sister Cecilie and her family. It was the last time the sisters saw each other. On November 16, 1937, Cecilie, her husband, and two of their children died in a plane crash. Theodora was devastated.
World War II broke out two years later. Berthold was drafted into the German army and was wounded in the leg during the French campaign in 1940. During the war, Theodora volunteered with the German Red Cross. Then the losses came quickly. In January 1944, Berthold’s only sister was killed in an air raid on Frankfurt. Later that year, Theodora’s father, Prince Andrew, died in Monaco, estranged from his wife and children.
In November 1947, Theodora’s brother Philip married Princess Elizabeth, the future Queen of Britain. Theodora and her sisters were not invited. Their German connections were considered problematic in the British court, as their husbands had served on the German side during the war. While Philip celebrated in London, his sisters gathered at Marienburg Castle near Hanover. Their mother, Alice, who had attended the wedding, sent word through Queen Frederica of Greece about the ceremonies they had missed.
Theodora’s health began to decline in the late 1940s due to heart problems. In October 1963, her husband Berthold suffered a fatal heart attack while traveling with their son Ludwig. He was 57 years old. After more than thirty years of marriage, Theodora was a widow.
Her health continued to worsen. She spent her final years in a clinic in Konstanz, where she died on October 16, 1969, at the age of 63. Her mother Alice died just seven weeks later.
Her daughter Margarita trained as a nurse in London and married Prince Tomislav of Yugoslavia in 1957. The couple had two children, Nikola and Katarina, and divorced in 1981. Margarita died in 2013 at the age of 80.
Her son Maximilian became head of the House of Baden after his father’s sudden death. He studied agriculture and forestry and managed the family estates in Salem until his death in 2022 at the age of 89.
Her youngest son, Ludwig, also became a forester. He married Princess Anna Maria von Auersperg-Breunner in 1967.
Theodora’s life was marked by deep contrasts: exile and stability, loss and family joy. Through it all, she found moments of happiness, especially in her years at Salem. The old castle walls still hold the memory of her eventful life.