The second of five children of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg, Theodora spent a happy childhood between Athens and Corfu.

During their exile, Theodora and her family depended on the generosity of their foreign relatives, in particular Marie Bonaparte (who offered them accommodation in Saint-Cloud) and Edwina Mountbatten (who supported them financially).

Opposed to Nazism, Theodora and her husband kept their distance from the Nazi regime; however, this did not prevent Berthold from enlisting in the Wehrmacht at the start of the Second World War.

Over the years, the couple was nevertheless reintegrated into the life of the European elite, as illustrated by their invitation and presence at the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953 and at the wedding of Juan Carlos, Prince of Asturias, and Princess Sophia of Greece and Denmark in 1962.

The second daughter of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg, Theodora was born at Tatoi Palace, near Athens,[N 1] on 30 May 1906.

[12][13] Tired of attacks from the press and the opposition, Andrew and Alice found refuge in travel and spent most of the period between 1907 and 1908 outside the borders of their country.

[19] Concerned about the political situation of their country, Andrew and Alice once again found refuge abroad and stayed in the United Kingdom, France and Hesse.

[39][40] Shortly after, in December, the routed Serbian army found refuge in Corfu,[41] leading Alice and her daughters to abandon Mon Repos for the capital.

[43][44][45] In addition, on 1 December, the French navy bombarded the royal palace in Athens, forcing Theodora and her sisters to take refuge in the cellars with their mother.

[51][52] Forced to reside in German-speaking Switzerland, the small group first stayed in a hotel in St. Moritz,[53][54] before settling in Lucerne,[55] where they lived with uncertainty about their future.

[57][58] Shortly after these events, the Grand Ducal family of Hesse, to which Theodora was closely related through her mother, was overthrown along with all the other German dynasties during the winter of 1918–1919.

[60] At the beginning of 1919, Theodora nevertheless had the joy of reuniting with her paternal grandmother, the Dowager Queen Olga, spared by the Bolsheviks thanks to the diplomatic intervention of the Danes.

[64] For Theodora, who now formed a duo with her elder sister Margarita,[65] exile was synonymous with sadness but also an opportunity for long family reunions and walks in the mountains.

[72] The joy that surrounded this birth, however, was obscured by the absence of Prince Andrew, who joined the Greek forces in Asia Minor during the Occupation of Smyrna.

[73] Despite concerns about the war, Theodora and her siblings enjoyed life at Mon Repos, where they received a visit from their maternal grandmother and their aunt Louise in the spring of 1922.

[74] In the park near the palace, built on an ancient cemetery, the princesses devoted themselves to archeology and discovered some pottery, bronze pieces and bones.

[96] Deprived of their Greek nationality after the proclamation of the Second Hellenic Republic in March 1924, Theodora and her family received Danish passports from their cousin King Christian X.

[97][98] Now of marrying age, the princess and her sister Margarita regularly left France for Great Britain, where they lived with their maternal grandmother, the Dowager Marchioness of Milford Haven.

[99] With their aunt Louise, who increasingly replaced their mother as a chaperone and confidante,[100] the two young girls attended most of the events by British aristocracy during the 1920s, including balls and dances, birthdays and garden parties at Buckingham Palace, horse races, etc.

Struck by a mental health crisis, the princess convinced herself that she possessed healing powers and that she was receiving divine messages about potential husbands for her daughters.

[118][119][120] On 17 August 1931, Theodora and Berthold married in a double religious ceremony, both Lutheran and Orthodox, at the Neues Schloss in Baden-Baden, which resulted in a large family reunion, at which the bride's mother, Princess Alice, was not present.

[154] In the meantime, Theodora also returned to Greece with Berthold on the occasion of the marriage of Crown Prince Paul to Princess Frederica of Hanover in January 1938.

[158][159] While Theodora engaged with the German Red Cross and other charitable organizations, Berthold took part in riskier actions, by attempting to hide Jews in his castle.

[160] As for her mother, she spent the war in Athens, but managed to pay a few visits to her daughters in 1940,[157] 1942,[161] and 1944[162][163][164] Added to this was the anguish of knowing her brothers-in-law Christoph and Gottfried and her brother Philip were fighting in opposite camps.

[166][167][168] A few months later, in January 1944, Marie Alexandra, Berthold's only sister, died in an attack by the U.S. Army Air Forces during an air-raid on Frankfurt am Main.

[175] Baden was placed under the administration of France and the United States,[176][177] however, Berthold and Theodora were not under threat,[N 4] and it did not take long for the margrave to find a leading social role.

They felt snubbed when they realized that their cousins, the Queen Mother of the Romanians and the Duchess of Aosta, had been invited despite their countries being allies of the Nazi regime during the conflict.

[208][209][210] Over the years, Theodora forged a close relationship with the British sovereign Queen Elizabeth II, who came to consider her as her favorite sister-in-law, according to the Spanish biographer Ricardo Mateos Sainz de Medrano.

The marriages of their daughter Margarita to Prince Tomislav of Yugoslavia in 1957[211][212][213] and their son Maximilian to Archduchess Valerie of Austria in 1966 were the occasions for great meetings of the European aristocracy.

[214] In 1965, Theodora organized a large reception in Salem on the occasion of the official trip of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip to West Germany.