Princess Sophie was born in the Neues Palais in Potsdam, Prussia on 14 June 1870.
Her father, Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia, and her mother, Victoria, Princess Royal of the United Kingdom (herself the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria and Albert, Prince Consort) were already the parents of a large family and as the penultimate child, Sophie was eleven years younger than her eldest brother, the future Emperor William II of Germany.
Frederick and Victoria were a close couple, both on sentimental and political levels.
Being staunch liberals, they lived away from the Berlin court and suffered the intrigues of a very conservative Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and members of the House of Hohenzollern.

A week after Sophie's birth, a case relating to succession to the throne of Spain damaged the Franco-Prussian relations.
The tone between Paris and Berlin worsened even further after Bismarck published the humiliating Ems Telegram on 13 July 1870.
Six days later, the government of Napoleon III declared war on Prussia and the states of the German Confederation offered support to Prussia, which then appeared as the victim of French imperialism.
It was in this difficult context that Sophie was christened the following month, though all the men present were in uniform, as France had declared war on Prussia.
Sophie's mother described the event to Queen Victoria: "The Christening went off well, but was sad and serious; anxious faces and tearful eyes, and a gloom and foreshadowing of all the misery in store spread a cloud over the ceremony, which should have been one of gladness and thanksgiving".

However, the conflict lasted only a few months and even led to a brilliant German victory, leading to the proclamation of Sophie's grandfather King William I of Prussia as the first German Emperor on 18 January 1871.
Princess Sophie was born in the Neues Palais in Potsdam, Prussia on 14 June 1870. Her father, Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia, and her mother, Victoria, Princess Royal of the United Kingdom (herself the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria and Albert, Prince Consort) were already the parents of a large family and as the penultimate child, Sophie was eleven years younger than her eldest brother, the future Emperor William II of Germany. Frederick and Victoria were a close couple, both on sentimental and political levels. Being staunch liberals, they lived away from the Berlin court and suffered the intrigues of a very conservative Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and members of the House of Hohenzollern.
A week after Sophie's birth, a case relating to succession to the throne of Spain damaged the Franco-Prussian relations. The tone between Paris and Berlin worsened even further after Bismarck published the humiliating Ems Telegram on 13 July 1870. Six days later, the government of Napoleon III declared war on Prussia and the states of the German Confederation offered support to Prussia, which then appeared as the victim of French imperialism. It was in this difficult context that Sophie was christened the following month, though all the men present were in uniform, as France had declared war on Prussia. Sophie's mother described the event to Queen Victoria: "The Christening went off well, but was sad and serious; anxious faces and tearful eyes, and a gloom and foreshadowing of all the misery in store spread a cloud over the ceremony, which should have been one of gladness and thanksgiving".
However, the conflict lasted only a few months and even led to a brilliant German victory, leading to the proclamation of Sophie's grandfather King William I of Prussia as the first German Emperor on 18 January 1871.
Sophia of Prussia