There is only one!
In a nut shell
All who carry the name “Dieseldorff” are one big family. The name appears often misspelled but has nothing to do with the city “Duesseldorf”. The name “Dieseldorff” is Prussian (see Prussian empire, parts are now Poland). Variations of the name are Diesseldorff (two “s”), sometimes appear as well. Two “f’s” at the end of a name is typical for Prussian origin. Other names are “von Beneckendorff” which is the second last name of Hindenburg and Ludendorff.
The name Dieseldorff came from the Lord von Dieseldorff (Graf von Dieseldorff) who reigned around 1720 to 1749. The Lord was representative to the king of Poland in Danzig (G’dansk) and was the major of G’dansk for seven terms.
The emperor (Kaiser), Leopold I. of Habsburg, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, appointed him to count palatine “Graf Johannes von Diesseldorff”. As count of the Holy Roman Empire he had sovereign powers in his own territory.
As head government of state he was also the representative of the King of Poland in Danzig (Gdansk).
He served under August II, King of Poland and Kurfuerst of Sachsen (until the King’s death in 1733) and during the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in Danzig (Gdansk).
The Graf (count) marries three times but without male heir. Unfortunately the count died without a male heir and his sister inherited his enormous fortune as well as countless scholarships.
When he died without male heir in about 1749, the name was not carried by anyone else anymore. Solomon Lazarus Levi changed his name from Levi to Dieseldorff begin of the 19th century.
Now Solomon Lazarus Levy enters the scene. His father was Moses Levy, a deeply religious Jew.
Solomon Lazarus Levy was a business man from Leipzig born in 1780 in Hannover. He married Johanna Dorothea Wilhelmine Hoefer, born in Luebek around 1820 and changed his name to Johann Heinrich Dieseldorff, son of Moses Levi. It is believed that either his father or the person he married were cousins of the Lord von Dieseldorff. That is why they took the name.
Solomon, now Heinrich, and Johanna moved to Hamburg around 1820. They had seven children.
In Hamburg, the Dieseldorff family began and maintained a small armada of trader ships transporting goods from and to South America (Guatemala and Peru).
The Great Great Grandmother of Chris – from whom all living Dieseldorff’s are – was Maria Rethey (or Retei) – also known as Eva.
Around 1865 Johann Peter Daniel Dieseldorff married Maria Graefin Rethey (or Retei) – the countess Rethey (or Rethei) which was Chris’ Great Great Grandmother. She was born in Jugendorf near Vienna, Austria in 1830 and belonged to the Klebersz family in Rete Hungary (now Reca in Slovakia). Everyone called her the countess Eva. The family known as Klebercz von Rethey became Ungarian aristrocrats in 1633 by appointment of King Ferdinand II. It is believed that the Klebercs are direct descendents of the family Bathory who were the kings of Poland. When she married Peter Daniel Dieseldorff they received enormous riches as wedding gift. Johann Peter used these riches to invest in his Guatemalan business and in Guatemalan infrastructure. The first rail road station in Guatemala was built by “Dieseldorff” or “Diesseldorf” (both variations of the name appear).
One Dieseldorff, Erwin Paul Dieseldorff, was one of the founders of archeological studies of the culture of the Mayas. Books and the museum in Coban, Guatemala, are witnesses of his accomplishments as well as a statue erected in honor of him in the city of Coban.
In Guatemala, the commercial links that had begun in the 1840’s between the German Hanseatic and the Prussian ports of the Baltic provided agents for further immigration from the German states especially after 1865. Erwin Paul Dieseldorff established in 1900 a coffee empire in the Alta Verapaz.
Before World War I, Germany had many colonies around the world.
That is one reason why many of the Dieseldorff family live in Guatemala, (Coban) where they operate the famous 
Dieseldorff Kaffee farms at Finca Santa Margarita since 1888. Pressured by the United States all Germans had to leave Guatemala after World War II except the Dieseldorff family because they resisted the Nazi regime in Guatemala. Other Dieseldorff who escaped the Nazi regime live now in Lima, Peru. Descendants from Guatemala and Peru live now also in United States (such as Miami). The grandmother of Chris was born and raised in Paraguay, South America (bordered to Argentina and Brazil).
The Jewish roots and connection caused many problems for the family especially during the Nazi regime who murdered one of the family members, Frieda Dieseldorff (maiden name: Sternberg, born January 16, 1884) in the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau (“the Death Camp”) as of the victims of Elmshorn in 1942. She was deported in November 7, 1942 nach KL Auschwitz-Birkenau (Oswiecim).
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Because of their continuous relationship with the Jewish society, the family who remained in Germany had to face difficult times. On one of his trip to Lima, Peru, Rudolph Dieseldorff, the half brother of Hermann, was told by family members not to return to Germany and stay in Lima because it would not be safe In Germany anymore. His mother and her sister did not survive the Holocaust and died in the concentration camps.
Rudolph remained in Peru ever since and built a flourishing farm and plant for nuts which provided also oil. He married a wonderful Peruvian lady with whom he is still happily married since over 40 years.
Click here to see more about the Diesselorf stpendium of Danzig,
Click here to see the list of mayors of Danzig
Click here to see about the history of Poland and search by Diesseldorff.
