Republic of Venice Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel Peter Melander, Count of Holzappel (8 February 1589 – 17 May 1648) was a German general who was a Protestant military leader in the Thirty Years' War until 1640 when he switched sides and even became Chief of the imperial army from 1647 until his death.

After his father's death in 1592, Peter Eppelman joined his childless uncle John, a secretary of Maurice of Orange, in the Netherlands.

He reached the first highlight of his military career in 1633 with his appointment as Lieutenant General and secret war council of the Landgrave William V of Hesse-Kassel.

William V was allied with the Swedes, so Peter Melander fought with the Hessian troops against the imperial army.

[1] In the Battle of Oldendorf on 28 June 1633, he commanded the center of the Protestant forces under Duke George of Brunswick-Calenberg and contributed much to the victory over the Imperial army and defeated them several more times as he chased them through Westphalia.

On 30 November 1646, he occupied Paderborn and after the death of Matthias Gallas in April 1647, he took command of the entire imperial army and led it into Bohemia in July.

In late August his cavalry scored a success against Swedish horsemen under Helmold Wilhelm Wrangel at the Battle of Triebl.

On 28 December 1647, Johann Georg Stauff, the Hessian commander of the castle, fired his cannon at the house of the apothecary Seip, where Melander had intended to have dinner at the bugle signal.

Peter Melander left a fortune that allowed his widow Agnes to purchase the Lordship and Castle of Schaumburg in 1656, and merge it with Holzappel, thus forming the County of Holzappel-Schaumburg.

In 1685, Melander's daughter Elisabeth Charlotte changed the name of the county seat from Esten into Holzappel.

A portrait in the Nassau collect, which has been reproduced in several articles about Melander, has been exposed by Pechtl as incorrect.