Von Wedel

Wedel (or Wedell) is an old German noble family, from Stormarn in what is now Schleswig-Holstein.

The family is first mentioned in records through Heinricus, Hasso and Reimbernus de Wedele in 1212, and traces its familial line to the monastery Vogt Heinrich, of the monastery "Novum Monasterium“, who is mentioned on 13 September 1149 in Ottenbüttel (Steinburg, Schleswig-Holstein). In December 1302 the brothers Heinrich, Johannes and Reinbert recorded that their uncle Reinhard the Elder was selling the village of Spitzerdorf to the Hamburg cathedral chapter in their presence and with their consent. Three brothers from the family appear in 1212 as witnesses in a record by Heinrich von Barmstede. A member of the family was captured after the second battle of Uetersen in 1306, broken on the wheel and quartered. The family exists in three branches. In 1328 Emperor Louis IV granted the lords of Wedel the towns or castles of Küstrin, Falkenburg, Schievelbein, Neu-Wedel, Kallies, Reetz, Nörenberg, Hochzeit, Klein-Mellen and Berneuchen as fiefs. From 1444 to 1445, Hans von Wedel was a diplomatic negotiator between the Teutonic Knights and the Kingdom of Poland.

A branch of the family was settled from the early 18th century in East Frisia. They owned the manor of Loga, now a part of the city of Leer. Here they built the Evenburg and the Philippsburg. In 1746, the family acquired Schloss Gödens through marriage. This comital line (Gödens-Evenburg) had a hereditary seat in the Prussian House of Lords from 5 December 1867 until the 1918 Revolution.

78 family members joined the Nazi Party in the Third Reich, 35 of them before the Nazis had come to power.

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