Wittmund sits where the East Frisian geest - a band of slightly higher, sandier ground left behind by glaciers - meets the low marshes that run to the coast. That topography mattered for centuries. The geest was dry enough to build on; the marshes were rich enough to farm. Roads found Wittmund early. By around 1200 the town was the hub of a rural parish called Wangerland, and was known then as Wiedemund or Wiedemundheim. The administrative center of the Harlingerland - the broader medieval region - was Esens, just east, but Wittmund had the geography and the road network on its side. About 9 miles north, the small port of Harlesiel sends ferries out to Wangerooge through a sluice in the dyke.

The Kankena family ran Wittmund from a castle in the late 14th century. Around 1400, Hamburg sent forces to occupy the castle on suspicion that the Kankenas had been backing pirates against Hanseatic shipping. The accusation was probably true. The castle eventually fell into the hands of the tom Brok chieftain dynasty, then was seized in 1454 by Sibet Attena, who that same year united the rulers of Esens, Stedesdorf, and Wittmund into an alliance designed to keep the East Frisian counts at arm's length. The arrangement worked for nearly 150 years. Only in 1600 did the Harlingerland, Wittmund included, finally fold into East Frisia through a tangle of political marriages and inheritances.

In 1744 East Frisia was absorbed by Prussia. A brief stretch under Dutch and then French rule followed during the Napoleonic upheavals. In 1815 the region was reassigned to the Kingdom of Hanover, and Wittmund received a Landdrost - the highest royal representative in the province. Then in 1866 Prussia took it back, and in 1885 Wittmund became the seat of a new Landkreis under Prussian administrative reform. The district hall was built in 1903 and still stands. Wittmund had been granted town rights as early as 1567 by Agnes, Countess of Rietberg, but those rights were stripped in the 17th century and not restored until 1929. It is one of the older towns in Germany to spend most of its history not technically being a town.

Wittmundhafen Air Base, on the borough's southern edge, hosts Taktisches Luftwaffengeschwader 71 - the Richthofen wing - named for the famous First World War pilot. The squadron once flew F-4 Phantoms, now flies Eurofighter Typhoons, and runs an annual public open day that draws aviation enthusiasts from across northern Germany. The town's other contributions to public life are harder to spot. Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt, born here in 1942, became the team doctor for the German national football team from 1995 to 2018, an era covering one World Cup victory and decades of arguing with coaches about whether key players could play. Footballers Timo Schultz and Christian Alder also grew up here. Wittmund is twinned with Simsbury, Connecticut - a connection that surprises most Americans and almost no Wittmunders, who tend to know their own diaspora by heart.