Wedel (noble family)

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Family coat of arms of those von Wedel

Wedel , partly Wedell , is the name of a north German noble family that settled in the Duchy of Pomerania and in Neumark in Brandenburg in the 14th century , where it became more important. Both regions remained the focus of the family's possession until 1945, but individual branches also found their way to other German regions as well as Denmark and Norway.

history

Seal of Hinricus de Wedele around 1322
Kremzow Castle, Western Pomerania

From Stormarn to Pomerania

The family, who came from Wedel in Stormarn in the north of the Elbe and was first mentioned there in 1212, traces their descent to a Heinrich named in 1149 , Vogt of the Neumünster Monastery . A Hasso Wedele and his sons appeared from around 1240 east of Stargard in Pomerania, where they were initially castle men . It is possible that they were already settled in the region between Kremzow and Petznick as feudal recipients, which the Bishop of Cammin had given to Duke Barnim I of Pomerania since 1248 . The center of the property development was the Kremzow Castle they built , which was owned by the family after 1300 at the latest. There were temporarily four manorial residences of different branches of the family, including two castles. In the 18th century the property came into one hand and a large castle was built, which remained ancestral seat of the family until the 20th century. Early Wedel castles in Pomerania were also Reetz and Kürtow (later in the Arnswalde district ).

Spread in the Neumark and Pomerania

After the Pomeranian Duke Barnim was sentenced in 1271 to grant the Order of St. John pledged property in the city of Stargard and the castles of Reetz and Kürtow, the Wedel family entered the service of the Margrave of Brandenburg , Otto IV at that time , and Ludolf von Wedel became his maid . The family then came to the Brandenburg town of Neumark , the marchia transoderana , through military service for the Ascanian margrave house , and in the following generations through purchase and lending to larger property. The focus was the region around Kürtow and Neuwedell and further east the terrae Falkenburg , Böthin and Tütz . Members of the family founded the towns of Falkenburg , Märkisch-Friedland and Neuwedell in the first decades of the 14th century (the castle there was built by seven brothers in 1313 on the eastern tip of the Düpsee peninsula, as a replacement for Altenwedell Castle, 20 km further west ) .

Also of importance was the Schivelbein lordship acquired by Wedego von Wedel in 1319 , which had passed from Pomerania to Brandenburg half a century earlier, but was surrounded on three sides by Pomeranian territory. In the Neumark, the property was soon significantly expanded: 1350 Henning acquired von Wedel Nörenberg (where the frond remained resident until the mid-17th century) and in 1369 arrived, composed of Neumärker bailiff (II) Hasso von Wedel-Uchtenhagen the city Reetz at the Wedels (where they remained city lords until 1810). The brothers Ludwig and Hasso von Wedel built a castle in Nörenberg from 1372. At least temporarily in the 14th century, terrae Kallies and Berstein were also owned by the family , the Neumark towns of Fürstenfelde , Deutsch Krone , Küstrin , (half) Oderberg (with the Oderberg fortress ), Schildberg , Schloppe and each with a permanent house Usch , pledged tax revenues from other cities, the castles Hochzeit , Berneuchen and Zantoch , about 100 villages and larger forest areas to the right of the nets.

In the 14th century, the fronds also came into possession in neighboring areas of Pomerania. In addition to the estates around the castle Kremzow in the later district of Pyritz , property around the castles Uchtenhagen , Mellen and von den Wedel - possibly with the preparatory participation of von Uchtenhagen - appeared in the subsequent districts of Saatzig and Regenwalde City of Freienwalde . The Pomeranian cities of Treptow and Plathe were temporarily in the hands of family members as early as the 13th century , and in the 14th century there were also Bahn , Bublitz , Dramburg , Pollnow , Polzin and Schlawe .

In the 14th century the Wedel had vassals and their own armed forces, which appeared around 1332 in the battle of the Kremmer Damm as the "turba Wedelorum". In 1388 they were still able to commit themselves to the Teutonic Order, regardless of sovereign consent, to keep 100 knights, 100 riflemen and 400 horses plus accompanying staff ready for 15 years on request. Heinrich writes: “The Wedel and their clientele ruled the endangered Neumark almost without restriction”, and interprets the situation as a variant of estate self-government. Rymar speaks of the "state within the state". For Gahlbeck, one of the main achievements of Wedel was to have made the Neumark into an "island of peace" during the seven-year internal war between the Wittelsbachers and the followers of the False Woldemar between 1348 and 1355.

As early as 1378, however, the chronicler Janko von Czarnikau reported that the Wedel area, which he named as a separate area alongside the Mark Brandenburg and the Duchy of Stettin, was in a state of unheard of devastation due to ongoing wars. Not only the wars, but also the relatively advanced administrative expansion of the margraves in the 14th century was not conducive to the stabilization of a separate territorial rule. In addition, there was a conflict with the margraves from the mid-1360s, which had ignited the appointment of foreigners as bailiffs of the Neumark and led to the Wedel being blocked from access to court offices and administrative posts in Brandenburg for a long time.

In 1374, according to Charles IV's land register , her New Mark land holdings were essentially still there. In 1479 Neuwedell came to Pomerania from the Teutonic Order. After the Pomeranian ducal family of the Griffins died out, Western Pomerania, and with it Neuwedell, fell to the Electorate of Brandenburg in 1637. Parts of the goods complexes around Falkenburg (until around 1500), Märkisch-Friedland (until around 1600), Tütz (which passed from Brandenburg to Poland in 1368 and belonged to the Polish line Tuczyński de Wedel until 1739) remained in the family's hands until modern times stand), Nörenberg (until around 1750) and Reetz (until 1810). In Neuwedell and Freienwalde the Wedel operated castle courts until the 19th century, which decided in the second instance. The Neumark was given to the Teutonic Knights Order in 1402 , parts of it were destroyed by Hussites in 1433 , and in 1454 it was pledged and finally returned to Brandenburg ( ruled by the Hohenzollern since 1415 ) in 1463 .

Until the flight and expulsion in 1945 , the Neuwedell (Großgut) and Gerzlow (today: Jarosławsko ) estates in Neumark and in Pomerania Kremzow were still in family ownership, albeit to a lesser extent and Fürstensee as well as - in the form of the goods Braunsforth, Kannenberg, Schwerin , Silligsdorf and Vehlingsdorf - parts of the old estates around Freienwalde, Uchtenhagen and Mellen. Family members also owned the Emmasthal , Lassehne, Pumptow and Zülzefitz estates in Pomerania and Pinnow, Rehfeld and Zettitz in Neumark until 1945 . In 1889 the Pomeranian Dragoon Regiment No. 11 was named after the family.

Since the middle of the 17th century, the Wedel had acquired or inherited property outside of Neumark and (Hinter-) Pomerania, first in Uckermark, in Swedish-Finland, Denmark, Danish-Norway and East Friesland, in the 18th century in Central Germany and East Prussia and later in Western Pomerania, Silesia, the Baltic States and Lusatia. Althof, Eszerischken and Katzborn in East Prussia, Wiesenau in today's Estonia, Malchow and Göritz in the Uckermark and Piesdorf in the former Saalkreis are mentioned.

Counts Wedell-Wedellsborg and Wedel-Jarlsberg

To this day, the Wedell-Wedellsborg branch of the Danish family owns the Güterkoplex Wedellsborg , which came through marriage to Wilhelm Friedrich von Wedel (1640–93), a son of Major General Jürgen Ernst von Wedel , Lord of the Mirror and Butow near Reetz in the Neumark who was in Swedish service as major general and represented Queen Christina as envoy at the Brandenburg court. Wilhelm Friedrich went to Denmark in 1662 and married Christiane Sophie Sehested, the heir to the Danish statesman Hannibal Sehested and his wife Christiane (a daughter of King Christian IV ). In 1666 Wedel came into possession of the goods Iversnæs (henceforth called Wedellsborg) and Tybrind on the island of Funen (in Husby Sogn ). In 1665 he had already acquired the Rugård and Søndergårde estates (which later left the family again). In 1672 he became a Danish liege count . In 1950 the extensive Frijsenborg estate was inherited , so that Count Bendt Wedell-Wedellsborg today holds the second largest property in Denmark with over 10,000 hectares. The Barons Wedell-Neergaard have owned the Svenstrup estate in Borup Sogn, inherited from the Neergaard family, since 1893 .

Wilhelm Friedrich's younger brother Gustav Wilhelm von Wedel made it to the general in changing services, entered Danish service in 1678 and became commanding field marshal in Norway. He sold his Brandenburg goods and in 1683 acquired the Jarlsberg estate in Norway, which is still owned by the Count's Wedel-Jarlsberg branch. Also owned by descendants of the Wedel-Jarlsberg line is East Frisian Gödens , which came to Count Wedel in 1746 through the marriage of Erhard Friedrich von Wedel-Jarlsberg to Baroness Maria von Frydag . The East Frisian glory Loga, with the houses Evenburg and Philippsburg , which was owned by the family at the end of the 17th century, also remained in the family until the 20th century. The owner of the Majorate Gödens had a hereditary seat in the Prussian manor house since 1867 . The von Wedel family as a whole also had a right of presentation to the Prussian manor house since 1854 .

The family lost 72 members in the Prussian wars between 1740 and 1763 and had 47 war dead and murdered during and after the Second World War , including 27 dead.

78 family members joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) , 35 of them before the seizure of power .

Ranks

Christian Friedrich von Wedel on Mantere in Finland, from Neumark, was introduced in 1672 under the number 803 to the nobility class of the Swedish knighthood . In the same year Friedrich Wilhelm von Wedel, also from New Marks, became Danish liege Count Wedell af Wedellborg in Primogenitur with the title of baron for the other descendants. The same distinction was made, at least under Danish law, with his brother Gustav Wilhelm , who had acquired the Norwegian county of Jarlsberg and became a Danish count in 1684 under the name Wedel-Jarlsberg. One of his descendants, the Prussian general and diplomat Karl Graf von Wedel (1842-1919), who from 1907 to 1914 imperial governor in Alsace-Lorraine was awarded the Prussian 1914 title of prince .

Presentation right to the Prussian manor house

In 1855, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV granted the family the right to present themselves to the Prussian mansion . The family was one of the ten families who received this right in the initial phase of the manor house in 1854/1855.

At the presentation of the Association of the Pomeranian Castle Seated Family von Wedel sat in the manor house:

Family coat of arms

Blazon : Shield : "In gold a black eight-spoked Richtrad 16 bogigen blades." Crest "on the gold-black bewulsteten ( pot -) helmet with black and gold ceiling a blond man's torso in black and red split doublet and just such a broad-brimmed hat with a gold-black hat cord and belt, both with a central loop. "

family members

Sarcophagus with the bones of the von Wedel family from the village church of Kremzow . Exhibit in the Stettin Jakobikirche

literature

General
Medieval related
  • Helga Cramer: The Lords of Wedel in the country over the Oder. Property and rule formation up to 1402. In: Yearbook for the history of Central and East Germany. , Volume 18, Berlin 1969, pp. 63-129.
  • Christian Gahlbeck : On the origin and composition of the Neumark nobility up to the middle of the 14th century. In: Klaus Neitmann (Hrsg.), Sovereign, nobility and cities in the medieval and early modern Neumark. , Berlin 2015, pp. 115–181.
  • Heinrich von Wedel : History of the castle-seated family of the counts and lords of Wedel. 1212-1402. In addition to a register of the documentary proof of possession. Leipzig 1894.
  • Heinrich von Wedel : About the origin, the political significance and the status of the family von Wedel from the middle of the 12th to the end of the 14th century. Berlin 1915.

Web links

Commons : Wedel  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Heinrich Berghaus : Land book of the Duchy of Pomerania and the Principality of Rügen. Part II, Volume 3: Greifenhagen and Piritz districts , Anklam 1868, pp. 689-692 .
  2. ↑ Gerd Heinrich : Die 'Freie Herren' und das Land , pp. 137-150, 145 in: Hartmut Boockmann (Ed.), The beginnings of the corporate representations in Prussia and its neighboring countries . Munich 1992.
  3. ^ Edward Rymar : Historia polityczna i społeczna Nowej Marchii w średniowieczu (do roku 1535). , Gorzów Wlkp., 2015, p. 413.
  4. ^ Janko von Czarnikau : Chronicon Polonorum. Lw'ow 1872, p. 88.
  5. ^ The Piesdorf estate archive  in the German Digital Library
  6. ↑ Aage V. Jensens Fonde holds the largest Danish real estate .
  7. ↑ Christopher Clark : Prussia. Rise and fall. 1600-1947. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-421-05392-3 , p. 193.
  8. ^ Gerd Heinrich : History of Prussia. State and dynasty. Ullstein, Berlin 1984, ISBN 3-548-34216-7 , p. 525.
  9. ↑ Stephan Malinowski : From the king to the leader. Social decline and political radicalization in the German nobility between the German Empire and the Nazi state. Academy publishing house. Berlin 2003. ISBN 3-05-004070-X . P. 573.
  10. ^ Genealogy. Handbook of the nobility, Adelslexikon. Volume XV, p. 510, CA Starke-Verlag, Limburg, 2004.
  11. ^ Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, Adelslexikon. Volume XV, p. 511.
  12. ^ Genealogical handbook of the nobility. Volume GA IV, p. 521, CA Starke-Verlag, Limburg 1962.
  13. ↑ a b E. David (ed.): Handbook for the Prussian manor house . Berlin 1911, p. 229 ( online ).
  14. ↑ E. David (Ed.): Handbook for the Prussian manor house . Berlin 1911, p. 371 ( online ).
  15. ^ Rolf Straubel : Biographical manual of the Prussian administrative and judicial officials 1740–1806 / 15 . In: Historical Commission to Berlin (Ed.): Individual publications . 85. KG Saur Verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-598-23229-9 , pp. 1070 f . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  16. ^ Rolf Straubel : Biographical manual of the Prussian administrative and judicial officials 1740–1806 / 15 . In: Historical Commission to Berlin (Ed.): Individual publications . 85. KG Saur Verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-598-23229-9 , pp. 1072 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  17. ^ Rolf Straubel : Biographical manual of the Prussian administrative and judicial officials 1740–1806 / 15 . In: Historical Commission to Berlin (Ed.): Individual publications . 85. KG Saur Verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-598-23229-9 , pp. 1072 f . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  18. ^ Rolf Straubel : Biographical manual of the Prussian administrative and judicial officials 1740–1806 / 15 . In: Historical Commission to Berlin (Ed.): Individual publications . 85. KG Saur Verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-598-23229-9 , pp. 1073 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  19. ^ Rolf Straubel : Biographical manual of the Prussian administrative and judicial officials 1740–1806 / 15 . In: Historical Commission to Berlin (Ed.): Individual publications . 85. KG Saur Verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-598-23229-9 , pp. 1073 f . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  20. ↑ [1] .
  21. ↑ Various older agreements between Brandenburg, Poland and Prussia. In: General Archive for the History of the Prussian State. Volume 4, Berlin Posen Bromberg 1831, pp. 154-164. .
  22. ^ Rolf Straubel : Biographical manual of the Prussian administrative and judicial officials 1740–1806 / 15 . In: Historical Commission to Berlin (Ed.): Individual publications . 85. KG Saur Verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-598-23229-9 , pp. 1074 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  23. ^ Rolf Straubel : Biographical manual of the Prussian administrative and judicial officials 1740–1806 / 15 . In: Historical Commission to Berlin (Ed.): Individual publications . 85. KG Saur Verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-598-23229-9 , pp. 1075 ( limited preview in Google Book search).