Das Freizeit-Magazin, 1978: Anni-Frid: this is my life

Because Anni-Frid grew up without a father, she always fantasized about a real family in her childhood. "When I'm grown up I will get married and then I will only care for my husband and children," she once said to her grandmother in the middle of Sweden, where she grew up after her mother had died at a young age. She was singing in the folk parks merely to keep her head above water until she got married. When she was eighteen she already reached the destiny of her dreams. Anni-Frid got married to the musician Ragnar Fredriksson and gave birth to two children. But the family bliss she was hoping for failed to materialize. Only today, with her Benny and the ABBA success, she is truly happy.

Pictures from left to right.
When she was only thirteen she already performed as a singer in parks and halls. Frida: "I had to make money to earn my living." That's what she kept doing after she got married as well.

Frida started concentrating more and more on her success as a solo singer, a pretty girl, constantly radiant and with many different looks.

In a 1967 TV show, Frida sang every competition into the ground. Although the long-desired breakthrough had been achieved, her private happiness was shattered. Because Frida hardly lived with her family anymore.

For 32 years, Anni-Frid had felt like an orphan. But her father had not - as it had been assumed for a long time - died in the turmoil of war in 1945. These days he is living as a pastry cook in Karlsruhe and he only found out about the existence of his daughter after stories about the ABBA girl's fate had appeared in the newspapers. In 1944, the then 26-year-old German sergeant had met Anni-Frid's mother in Norway. The war separated them.

This was the start of a tremendous career: in 1974, four unknown Swedes called ABBA sang a song at the Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton that would become a worldwide hit: 'Waterloo'. One of the girls on stage was Anni-Frid. The three others: Agnetha, Björn and Benny. This line-up remained and they scared the top class of pop musicians stiff. Two years after Brighton, the four Swedes had already sold more than 26 million records, mostly albums. Previously, only the Beatles had achieved such a feat. And that's how the story continued.

No matter what ABBA sang, it always became a worldwide hit, whether it was in the East or in the West. It was also raining gold records from all kinds of different countries. On their trip to Warsaw as well, where they are pictured here.

A happy family: Frida with her husband Ragnar and both of their children Lise-Lotte and Hans. But scenes like this were very rare in Frida's marriage. Frida: "It wasn't what I had always fantasized about."

In this building in Stockholm it all started for ABBA. The first songs of the group were created here. And today, ABBA's office is still located in this building.

The marriage to Ragnar fell apart. But Anni-Frid has found her private happiness: Benny, her partner in ABBA. "Benny is my security, I depend on him completely," Frida declared happily.