Gravenreuth was a German noble family. The family's origin seat was located in Grafenreuth, now part of

Thiersheim Thiersheim is a municipality in the district of Wunsiedel in Bavaria in Germany. Grafenreuth, now a part of Thiersheim, was the seat of the noble family Gravenreuth for centuries. Thiersheim - Sankt Ägidien Kirche - 01.jpg, Evangelical Luthe ...

in the District of Wunsiedel in Upper Franconia, first mentioned in 1180. Up to the 18th century, the family, supplied with the title

Freiherr (; male, abbreviated as ), (; his wife, abbreviated as , literally "free lord" or "free lady") and (, his unmarried daughters and maiden aunts) are designations used as titles of nobility in the German-speaking areas of the Holy Roman Empire ...

en, was the owner of nearby land and villages, e.g. in the area of

Marktredwitz Marktredwitz () is a town in the Wunsiedel (district), district of Wunsiedel, in Bavaria, Germany, close to the Czech Republic, Czech border. It is situated 22 km west of Cheb, 50 km east of Bayreuth and 50 km south of Hof/Saale. Ma ...

. Lines of the family moved to

Upper Palatinate The Upper Palatinate (german: Oberpfalz, , ) is one of the seven administrative districts of Bavaria, Germany, and is located in the east of Bavaria. Geography The Upper Palatinate is a landscape with low mountains and numerous ponds and lakes ...

, e.g. in Schlammersdorf. The family is directly related with the

House of Sparneck The House of Sparneck was a local noble family in Franconia. The family is known to exist from 1223 to 1744 and was named after the market village of Sparneck. One of their first castles was the Waldsteinburg; further castles were located in Sp ...

. In the fellowship of the margraves from Bayreuth, members of the family were part of the Order of the Red Eagle and engaged in St Georgen under that with the foundation of the ''Gravenreuther Stift'' by Georg Christoph of Gravenreuth (1667-1736), offering a home and a religious life-style for poor unmarried older men. There is a line of Barons (German: Grafen) from 1825 to 1919. In 1816 the ''Hofmark'' Affing was bought, members of the family are still living there. A prominent member in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

was

Sigmund-Ulrich Freiherr von Gravenreuth The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (german: Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes) and its variants were the highest awards in the military and paramilitary forces of Nazi Germany during World War II. The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross was awarde ...

.Peter Braun: ''Die Herren von Sparneck. Stammbaum, Verbreitung, Kurzinventar''. In: ''Archiv für die Geschichte von Oberfranken''. Vol. 82, 2002, pp. 71–106.

References

Bavarian noble families Franconian nobility {{Germany-noble-stub