Ballestrem

Members of the family held political positions within the German Empire.

Originally named Ballestrero di Castellengo, they are first attested to as patrician merchants in the sixteenth century.

At the end of the seventeenth century, Marco Francesco Antonio Ballestrero was enfeoffed with the County of Montalenghe, near Turin.

His son, Count Giovanni Angelo Battista Ballestrero, moved to Germany, taking the name Johann Baptist von Ballestrem and eventually joining the Prussian officer corps.

Johann married into the wealthy Stechow family, leading the German Ballestrems to eventually inherit the lucrative Plawniowitz estate in Silesia, then part of Prussia and now part of Poland.