The town was first mentioned in a document in 1144. It belonged to the Hanseatic League.
Medebach and its district Oberschledorn entered the international news in September 2007 during the 2007 bomb plot in Germany, when three Islamic terrorists, two Germans and a Turk, were arrested there. They had received training in Pakistan and were about to build bombs from hydrogen peroxide in a rented holiday flat.[3]