The princess who navigated exile, Nazi ties, and royal ostracization

Cultures · Published 11 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Margarita of Greece was a princess of two worlds, caught between the collapse of empires and the rise of extremism. From the cellars of Athens during bombings to the courts of Nazi Germany, her life serves as a complex study of how royalty survives—and compromises—during the 20th century's greatest upheavals.

Margarita, the first-born girl of Princess Alice of Battenberg and Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, arrived at the Athens Royal Palace in 1905. Her early life was defined by extreme instability. Following the Goudi coup of 1909 and the subsequent Balkan Wars, her family was forced into a nomadic existence. They fled to the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, eventually facing a harrowing period of exile in Switzerland and the UK between 1917 and 1936. During this time, the family relied on the financial support of Lady Louis Mountbatten and the hospitality of relatives like Princess George of Greece and Denmark.

The 1930s marked a controversial chapter in Margarita's life. After marrying Prince Gottfried of Hohenlohe-Langenburg in 1931, the couple moved to Weikersheim Castle. Using their high-society connections, they actively sought to promote a rapprochement between the Nazi party and the United Kingdom. While they failed to achieve this goal, their involvement with the regime led to significant consequences. Following the defeat of Germany in World War II, the couple were notably ostracized by the British royal family during the 1947 marriage of Margarita's brother, Prince Philip, to Elizabeth II.

Despite this period of social isolation, Margarita eventually saw a gradual reintegration into the European elite. She was invited to the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 and attended the 1962 wedding of Juan Carlos, Prince of Asturias. Her life was a microcosm of the 20th-century aristocracy: a transition from the traditional monarchies of the Balkans to the ideological battlegrounds of the mid-century, ultimately ending in a quiet return to the family fold before her death in 1981.

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