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The Queen decided to mark her 75th birthday by opening up for the first time on the scandal that swept the Swedish royal family in 2002. Shockwaves were sent through Sweden that year when newspaper Arbetaren revealed her father, German businessman Walther Sommerlath, had been a member of Adolf Hitler’s party in 1934. Queen Silvia, who entered the Swedish Royal Family on June 19 1976 when she married King Carl XVI Gustaf, said her first reaction was disbelief.

Dismissing the claims as false, she refused to accept her father could be a member of the Nazi Party at first. The news sparked an hectic research conducted by the Queen, who in a desperate attempt to go to the bottom of it went through more than 20 binders of documents. Her research showed there was no evidence Mr Sommerlath was an prominent Nazi - but he was a member nonetheless. The Queen told Swedish tv channel SVT1: “When I got to see the evidence in black and white, I had to accept it.” READ MORE: King Carl, Queen Silvia and Princess Victoria in pictures

Queen Silvia opened up on her father's past

Queen Silvia is turning 75 this year

The Swedish royal didn’t hide she struggled coming to terms with the facts. She said: “I’m not trying to detract from the fact that he had become a member. “But you may have to think ‘Why did he do it?’ “He and many others did not know what would happen after. “Had he known, I don’t believe he would have become a member.”

Queen Silvia and her husband King Carl XVI Gustaf

The Queen’s father died on October 21 1990, 12 years before the truth came to light. He joined the Nazi party at the age of 33 while he was living in Brazil for the steel company Acus Roechling Boulerus do Brasil, a subsidiary in the German steel group Roechling. He returned to Germany in 1938 with his wife, and mother to Queen Silvia, Alice. Queen Silvia said she believed her father went back to Germany as he felt there was hope again for his country.

Queen Silvia discovered in 2002 that her father was a member of the Nazi party

And research showed her father was not an anti-Semite, as Mr Sommerlath helped a Jewish man named Ernst Wechsler when he found himself struggling with the racial laws discriminating Jewish people in Germany. The Queen’s father traded his coffee plantation in Brazil for Mr Wechsler’s German firm, as Mr Wechsler was to lose it according to the new laws. Following the deal with the Queen’s father, Mr Wechsler and his family fled to Brazil with Mr Sommerlath. Researcher Erik Norberg concluded in his report Mr Wechsler received good money from Mr Sommerlath for his company in Germany.

Queen Silvia entered the Swedish Royal Family upon marrying King Carl XVI Gustaf in 1976