Background
He may have been a son of Count Wichmann the Elder and Frederuna, sister of Queen Matilda, and held large estates along the Elbe and Saale rivers.
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Dietrich Dietrich of Haldensleben
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Career
He also bore the title of a dux (duke) in contemporary sources. He also fought - without success - against the Polabian Slavs settling on the Elbe river at the eastern rim of his Eastphalian home territory. In return Otto, Holy Roman Emperor since 962, appointed him margrave in the Northern March beyond the Elbe, the largest part of the former Marca Geronis after its dissolution upon the death of Margrave Gero in 965.
Dietrich was a harsh overlord.
Together with Archbishop Adalbert of Magdeburg he enforced the Christianization of the local Slavic population and plot the execution of the rivalling count Gero of Alsleben. According to the medieval chroniclers Adam of Bremen and Annalista Saxo, Dietrich was deprived of his march in the same year, though he later again appeared as a Saxon general and supported the minor king King Otto III of Germany against the claims to the throne raised by the Bavarian duke Henry the Wrangler.
According to the Annals of Quedlinburg Dietrich died on 25 August 985. He had the following children:
Bernard (†1051), became (titular) margrave of the Northern March in 1009
Oda (~962-1023), married the Piast duke Mieszko I of Poland about 978
Mathilda von Haldensleben, married the Hevelli chieftain Pribislaw
Thietberga, married Count Dedo I of Wettin.
Membership
Probably a member of the Saxon House of Billung, Dietrich was the ancestor of a comital branch named after the residence of Haldensleben in Eastphalia.
