Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg was a partition of Sayn-Wittgenstein in the 16th century; the southern and more-developed portion was the County of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Wittgenstein with its seat Laaspe (now Bad Laasphe) and its residence Wittgenstein Castle, whereas Berleburg is tucked away in a very rural landscape in the midst of vast forests.

Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg was raised from a county with Imperial immediacy to an immediate principality (Reichsfürstentum) in 1792, and was mediatised to the Grand Duchy of Hesse in 1806 before being annexed to Prussia in 1816.

Five branches of the House of Sayn were extant by the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, each having inherited its own appanage while the family enjoyed Imperial immediacy as vassals of the Holy Roman Empire.

[3][4] In November 1960, Christian Heinrich, being the divorced father of three daughters by his dynastic marriage to Countess Beatrix von Bismarck-Schönhausen {Beatrix Grafin von Bismarck-Schönhausen} (1921-2006), married Princess Dagmar zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hohenstein (1919-2002), elder daughter of his adopted father's younger brother, Georg, who died seven months before the wedding.

[3] As Georg's children by his morganatic wife, Marie Rühm, (created Baroness von Freusburg by the reigning Prince of Lippe in 1916) had been de-morganatized by declaration of their uncle August on 11 February 1947, her marriage to Christian Heinrich was deemed a dynastic match, ensuring that their son Bernhart would be born in compliance with the house laws of his adoptive ancestors, the Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hohensteins, while also being a grandson of the last dynastic male of that family, Prince Georg.