Schroeter family

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The von Schroeter family is a German noble family from the Wroclaw region. The earliest known ancestor is Heinrich Schroeter (1620–1680), a merchant in Rawitsch. In the 17th century Rawitsch became a refuge for Protestants and others fleeing Habsburg oppression from Bohemia and Silesia. Later Heinrich’s sons took the name Sigismund in memory of princes who protected Protestants, possibly Sigismund II of Poland or Elector Johann Sigismund of Brandenburg.

Sigismund Gottlieb Schroeter (1694–1760), Heinrich’s grandson, was a Protestant theologian and pastor at the Church of Peace in Jawor, one of the most important churches in Silesia and now part of UNESCO’s World Heritage. A painting of “Archidiaconus Schroeter” hung in the church vestry for 250 years until a burglary in 1962.

The first noble line descends from Heinrich von Schroeter, who was raised to Prussian nobility by Emperor Wilhelm II on January 18, 1901. The second noble line comes from Paul von Schroeter, raised to nobility on June 11, 1902; this line became extinct in the male line after his death in 1907.

Both lines come from the Wroclaw patrician Hermann Sigismund Schroeter (1824–1880), Lord of Oswitz, Protsch and Weida, and his wife Berta Elisabeth née Korn (1832–1914), who was the granddaughter of Friedrich August Karl von Kospoth.