Polish: Pomorze; Latin and English: Pomerania

Pomerania stretches along the southern coast of the Baltic Sea from the mouth of the Recknitz in the west to the mouth of the Piasnitz (Piaśnica) in the east, a distance of 365 kilometres as the crow flies. This historic region thus covers an area extending from 12º 24' (Saaler Bodden) to 18º 9' east longitude (south of Lake Żarnowieckie [Jezioro Żarnowieckie]) in geographical coordinates. The northernmost point is on the Baltic coast east of Leba/Łeba at 54º 50', whilst the southernmost point is near Bernstein/Pełczyce at 52º 56' north latitude. Following the expansion of the Province of Pomerania in 1938, the southernmost point lay south-east of Friedeberg in the Neumark/Strzelce Krajeńskie region at 52° 42'.

The landform was shaped during the last Ice Age and, in Hinterpommern, displays the classic sequence of a glacial series from south to north: a long section of the Baltic Ridge as a terminal moraine with the Pomeranian Lake District (Pojezierze Pomorski), an extensive ground moraine in the coastal plain, criss-crossed by numerous glacial valleys. The only outcrops from an earlier geological era are the Cretaceous deposits dating from the Mesozoic era on the Rügen peninsulas of Jasmund and Wittow, as well as near Finkenwalde/Zdroje, east of Szczecin, and at Lebbin/Lubin on Wolin. The coastline in its present form is barely 2,000 years old. In Western Pomerania, these consist of flooded ground moraine basins, which form the basis for today’s highly indented Bodden coastline. The Oder estuary delta originates from the so-called Haffstausee. Starting with the islands of Usedom and Wolin, the Hinterpommersche Ausgleichsküste (recompensatory coast of Hinterpommern) extends eastwards to the Hela Peninsula (Półwysep Helski) in Pomerellia, characterised by fine sandy beaches.

The Oder is the most important navigable river, flowing into the Baltic Sea (Morze Bałtyckie) viaLake Dąbie (Jezioro Dąbie), the Szczecin Lagoon, the Peene Estuary, theŚwina and the Dievenow (Dziwna) into the Baltic Sea (Morze Bałtyckie). In Western Pomerania, the Recknitz, Peene and Uecker; in Western Pomerania, the Ihna (Ina), Rega, Persante (Parsęta), Wipper (Wieprza), Stolpe (Słupia), Lupow (Łupawa) and Leba (Łeba) are the major rivers that flow northwards and empty, either directly or indirectly, into the Baltic Sea. In contrast, the Brahe (Brda), Küddow (Gwda) and Drage (Drawa) flow southwards from the ridge towards the Netze (Noteć) and the Vistula (Wisła). The highest point in Pomerania is the Schimmritzberg near Bütow/Bytów, at 256 metres. Whilst in Western Pomerania only Lake Kummerow on the border with Mecklenburg is of any note as a standing body of water, in Eastern Pomerania there are the Lake Leba (Jezioro Łebsko), Lake Gardno (Jezioro Gardno), Lake Jamno (Jamno) and Lake Bukowo (Jezioro Bukowo), the first of which, at over 75 km², is the largest lake in Pomerania. In addition, there is Lake Madü (Jezioro Miedwie), covering 36 km², and several bodies of water in the Pomeranian Lake District, of which Lake Dratzig (Jezioro Drawsko) and Lake Vilm (Jezioro Wielimie) each cover just under 20 km². Off the coast of Western Pomerania lie three large and several small islands: Rügen (926 km²), Usedom (445 km²), Wollin (248 km²), Ummanz (20 km²), Hiddensee (19 km²) and others.

Hinterpommern was the heartland of the settlement area of the West Slavic people known as the Pomorans, over whom the emerging Polish Kingdom had claimed suzerainty with varying degrees of success since the 10th century. Western Pomerania, the Uckermark and eastern Mecklenburg were the heartlands of the Wilzen. They were the targets of military campaigns by both the Carolingians and the Ottonians. From the early 12th century onwards, the neighbours of the West Slavic tribes intensified their efforts to integrate the territories between the Vistula and the Elbe. For the Pomeranians, this led, in quick succession, to the recognition of shifting claims to power from the Polish, Danish and German sides, whilst they themselves extended their own sphere of influence west of the Oder to Western Pomerania, the Uckermark and the Barnim, as well as eastern Mecklenburg. After 1227, Pomerania’s affiliation with the Holy Roman Empire was undisputed. The Principality of Rügen, however, which passed by inheritance to the Dukes of Pomerania in 1325, remained a Danish fiefdom outside the borders of the Empire until the first half of the 15th century. The territories of Lauenburg/Lębork and Bütow/Bytów, as hereditary fiefs of the Polish Crown, also lay outside the Empire’s borders. The Bishopric of Cammin, as an ecclesiastical principality, had held imperial status since at least the early 15th century. The imperial immediacy of the Duchy of Pomerania was contested until 1529 by the Margraves and later Electors of Brandenburg. Following the extinction of the House of Greifen in 1637, the Peace of Westphalia decreed the division of the territory between Brandenburg and Sweden, both of which henceforth held a seat and a vote for the Duchy of Pomerania in the Imperial Diet until 1806. The Bishopric of Cammin was secularised and, after 1650, integrated into the Brandenburg conglomerate state as the Principality of Cammin, with a seat and a vote in the Imperial Diet. Following the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the Swedish portion of Pomerania was incorporated into the Kingdom of Sweden; however, this had no real constitutional significance due to the French occupation of the region. In 1815, Pomerania was reunited as a Prussian province. As part of the Kingdom of Prussia, Pomerania became a member of the North German Confederation in 1866 and of the German Empire in 1871. With the collapse of the German Empire in 1945, the region was partitioned on the basis of the Potsdam Agreement, although the exact course of the demarcation line west of Stettin and Swinemünde/Świnoujście was not finalised until the Treaty of Schwerin of 21 September 1945 between the Soviet Military Administration and Poland. 82 per cent of the province of Pomerania thus came under Polish administration. The remaining part, comprising almost all of Western Pomerania, was merged with Mecklenburg to form a state within the Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ), which emerged as a German Federal State following the end of the GDR in 1990.

Since the turn of the 12th to the 13th century, Pomerania has been represented by the griffin as its heraldic animal. The dynasty, which can be traced back to the 12th century and reigned until 1637, took its name from this heraldic symbol from the late Middle Ages onwards. A red griffin on a silver field represents the Duchy of Pomerania, later the Province of Pomerania, and today the eastern part of the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The West Pomeranian Voivodeship (województwo zachodniopomorskie) also bears this coat of arms, modelling its design on that featured on the banner which Duke Casimir V of Pomerania (after 1380–1435) bore when he took part in the Battle of Tannenberg/Grunwald in 1410 on the side of the German Order. The easternmost parts of Hinterpommern now belong to the Pomeranian Voivodeship (województwo pomorskie), whose coat of arms depicts a black griffin on a gold background. This coat of arms originally represented the sub-duchy of Pomerania-Wolgast, formed in 1295, and has been associated with the purely titular Duchy of Kashubia since the 16th century. The horizontally divided blue and white Pomeranian flag dates back to the collar badges introduced in 1802 for the Pomeranian estates within the Prussian monarchy. Combined with the colours of Mecklenburg, they have also featured in the state flag of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania since 1991.

In the earliest maps of the 16th century, the Baltic Sea is often referred to as the ‘Pomeranian Sea’. The nickname ‘Pomeranus’, presumably coined in Wittenberg for the reformer Johannes Bugenhagen (1485–1558), suggests positive connotations associated with the region and its inhabitants outside Pomerania in the 16th century. A children’s song, thought to have originated in Hesse during the Thirty Years’ War, points to a variation of the name for the region that has been in use ever since: ‘Pomerania has burnt down …’. The derogatory term ‘Kaschubeneck’ for eastern Hinterpommern was widely used throughout the German-speaking world until the mid-20th century. In the last third of the 19th century, the Social Democrats coined the derogatory name ‘Puttkamerun’ for Hinterpommern, referring to large-scale landownership and the plight of agricultural labourers.

With the end of the last Ice Age, hunter-gatherers arrived in the area on both sides of the River Oder, their destination being, amongst other places, the flint fields on the east coast of Rügen. Continuous settlement has been documented since the Neolithic period. Agriculture and livestock farming spread. The burial customs of this period included megalithic tombs, which characterised the landscape until their widespread destruction during the construction of the Chaussee in the 19th century. On the southern Baltic coast, the Bronze Age is associated, in the second millennium BC, with the advance of the Corded Ware culture, whose people merged with the Neolithic settlers already living in the area. In the period that followed, the areas stretching from the southern North Sea coast through Scandinavia to the southern Baltic Sea coast formed the core settlement area of the Germanic tribes. During the Migration Period, it is assumed that the Rugians were present for a considerable time in northern Vorpommern, whilst the Burgundians were present in Hinterpommern. The princely graves at Lübsow/Lubieszewo near Greifenberg/Gryfice, which contained magnificent artefacts of Roman origin, are associated with the latter group. The ethnic classification of the Veneti, attested in ancient sources for the southern Baltic coast, remains unclear; it is thought that the later Germanic designation of the Slavs as ‘Wends’ derives from them. From the 6th/7th century onwards, Slavic tribes can be traced along the entire Baltic coast between the mouth of the Vistula and East Holstein, and it can be assumed that the remnants of the earlier settlement were absorbed into these tribes.

The oldest written record relating to the region later known as Pomerania is the account of a military campaign by Charlemagne (747/748–814) in 789 into the Peene region, during which the castle of the Wilz prince Dragovit was captured; this is thought to have been situated in Vorwerk, south-east of Demmin. It was not until 936 that Otto I (912–973) succeeded in subjugating the Peene region once again. However, due to the Slavic uprising of 983, this too remained merely an episode. Whilst the Slavic tribal confederations between the Oder and the Elbe were able to maintain their independence until the early 12th and established two of the West Slavs’ most important pagan sanctuaries – the temples at Rethra in the territory of the Lutici and at Arkona amongst the Rani – the Pomeranians, who were settled east of the Oder, came increasingly under Polish influence. The Poles, who had been Christianised since the 10th century, succeeded in several military campaigns in forcing the Pomeranians to pay tribute. A visible sign of this subjugation was the establishment of a bishopric in Salz-Kolberg as a suffragan diocese of the Archdiocese of Gniezno, founded in the year 1000. However, despite Polish efforts to Christianise them and integrate Pomerania more firmly into the emerging Piast state, the Pomeranians remained faithful to their old religion for more than 120 further years; this religion was linked, amongst other things, to the Triglaw cult in Szczecin. At the beginning of the 12th century, new campaigns were finally launched by both the Saxons and the Poles against the West Slavic tribes, accompanied by the mission to Christianise the entire region. The Christianisation of the Pomeranians was entrusted by the Polish side to Bishop Otto of Bamberg (c. 1060–1139) was entrusted with the Christianisation of the Pomeranians; in 1124, during an extensive journey through western Hinterpommern, he baptised both the ruling class and thousands of the region’s inhabitants and had the ancient temples destroyed. The division of the Pomeranian settlement area took place during this period. From then on, the eastern part developed under the Samborid princely dynasty, with a core area on the lower Vistula, into the Duchy of Pomerelia, which was more closely linked to Poland. In the western part, from the time of Wartislaw I (c. 1100 – before 1148) at the latest, the princely house of the Griffins – later named after their heraldic animal – played a defining role in the process of forming the Duchy of Pomerania.

After the First World War, Pomerania’s eastern districts bordered Poland. Following the Treaty of Versailles, the so-called ‘corridor’ and the loss of the hinterland – comprising the provinces of West Prussia and Posen – exacerbated the economic crisis affecting both agriculture and, in particular, Stettin, the industrial heart of the province. Many estates were heavily in debt, which led to increased land redistribution in the 1920s and 1930s.

Political persecution following the National Socialists’ seizure of power was particularly evident in Stettin, where the SS established a camp on the site of the Vulcan shipyard in Bredow/Drzetowo – which had gone into liquidation in 1929 –; this camp was closed in 1934, after reports of the arbitrary treatment taking place there had come to light. At the beginning of 1940, the Jews of Stettin were the first in the German Reich to be deported to the East. Shortly before that, people with disabilities from the provincial mental hospitals had already fallen victim to targeted killing programmes.

From 1933 onwards, a rift developed within the Protestant Church between the ‘German Christians’ and the pastors and congregations who identified with the Confessing Church. From 1935 to 1937, the Stettin-Finkenwalde Theological Seminary, headed by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945), served as a central hub of ecclesiastical resistance against National Socialism in Pomerania. The church struggle mobilised many members of the nobility, particularly in Hinterpommern, who, due to their conservative stance, were opposed to the new regime. Reinhold von Thadden-Trieglaff (1891–1976) and Ewald von Kleist-Schmenzin (1890–1945) are mentioned here as deputies.

During the Second World War, Pomerania was one of the areas least affected by the air war. There were major air raids on Stettin, Anklam, Stralsund and Peenemünde. Following the heavy British air raids of 20–21 April 1943 and 16–17 August 1944, the city centre of Stettin was largely destroyed. The American air raid on Swinemünde on 12 March 1945 resulted in the highest number of casualties, with more than 20,000 people, including numerous refugees, believed to have died. The Red Army’s breakthrough in January 1945 from the Vistula to the Oder near Küstrin/Kostrzyn heralded the destruction of Pomerania; by early May 1945, the region—which had until then been spared from combat—had fallen victim to the fighting. From the end of February 1945, the Red Army captured almost all the towns in Hinterpommern within a few days. Heavy fighting raged between 8 and 18 March around Kolberg, and during this period also in the area south-east of Stettin between Pyritz/Pyrzyce and Greifenhagen/Gryfino, as well as at the crossing over the Dievenow between Wollin and Cammin. Whilst Stettin was evacuated by German troops on 26 April, the destruction of towns in southern Vorpommern continued. In Demmin, following the burning of the town by the Red Army, a mass suicide of the civilian population is documented from 30 April 1945 onwards, in which more than 900 people lost their lives; such events took place in many locations throughout Pomerania. The towns in northern Vorpommern, including the university town of Greifswald, were surrendered without a fight and, unlike most in Hinterpommern and Altvorpommern, remained undamaged.

In Pomerania, the dualism between the sovereign and the estates of the realm – which, in the contemporary consciousness, together constituted the ‘country’ – had already developed by the Middle Ages. The estates of the realm – which, until the Reformation, included not only the nobility or knighthood and the towns but also the clergy – assembled at provincial assemblies, which are extensively documented for the territory as a whole, as well as for the sub-dominions of Wolgast and Stettin and the Bishopric of Cammin. Whilst in Swedish Pomerania after 1648 the estates were able to maintain their strong position by invoking the Regimental Constitution of 1634 and had this confirmed in a new constitution in 1663, the estates in Hinterpommern, and after 1720 also in Altvorpommern, lost their significance within the Brandenburg-Prussian conglomerate state.

From 1823 onwards, the traditions of the estates were carried on by the Provincial Association and the two municipal associations formed in this context: those of Hinterpommern and Altvorpommern, and those of Neuvorpommern and Rügen. The local associations, which met in separate local assemblies, were dissolved in 1881 and their responsibilities transferred to the Provincial Association. The Provincial Association, which was responsible for transport, regional development, economic promotion, social welfare, public insurance and loans, as well as the promotion of the arts, culture and science, was more influential than the provincial administration right up until the 1930s. From 1824 onwards, provincial assemblies met in Pomerania; these retained an estates-based character until 1875. From that year onwards, the members of the Provincial Parliament were elected by the district councils or municipal authorities and town councils; from 1920 onwards, they were finally elected by universal, equal, direct and secret ballot. The higher-level local authorities and provincial assemblies in Prussia were dissolved by the National Socialists in 1933–34. Franz Schwede-Coburg (1888–1960), the Gauleiter of the NSDAP, was appointed Chief President in Stettin.

From the late 12th century onwards, the Slavic principality, with its Lutici and Pomeranian inhabitants, rapidly transformed into a duchy that was German in both linguistic and constitutional terms. The process of the so-called ‘re-ethnicisation’ of the Pomeranians was largely complete after just a few generations and resulted in the Slavic inhabitants of the region adopting the Low German language. It is unclear exactly how many German settlers were invited to the region, particularly during the 13th century. In the areas bordering Pomerelia around Stolp, Lauenburg and Bütow, a Kashubian-speaking minority persisted into the 20th century. There was no Polish minority in Pomerania within its former borders; it existed only to a limited extent in the areas of the Posen-West Prussia Border Region that were incorporated into Pomerania in 1938. In 1939, the province of Pomerania had a population of 2,393,844 people living in 2,807 municipalities across an area of 38,401 km². This corresponded to an average population density of 62 inhabitants per km². Following the formation of Greater Stettin with effect from 15 October 1939, the metropolis on the River Oder was the third-largest city in the German Reich in terms of area and the seventh-largest in terms of population, after Berlin and Hamburg.

The first major wave of emigration can be observed as early as the third and fourth decades of the 19th century. These were primarily Old Lutherans who left the country for religious reasons, heading for North America and southern Brazil. From the last third of the 19th century onwards, mass emigration driven by socio-economic factors took place. The highest concentrations of Pomeranian settlers were found in the US state of Wisconsin, where around one in four inhabitants has ancestors from Pomerania, and in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, where the Low German dialect of Hinterpommern is still spoken today in the town of Pomerode near Blumenau.

From 1945 onwards, around 1.8 million inhabitants of the province of Pomerania were affected by flight and expulsion; the number of victims of war and violence stands at more than 500,000 (including more than 100,000 Wehrmacht personnel killed in action).

From the Middle Ages onwards, Pomerania, together with large parts of the region east of the Elbe, developed into the breadbasket of Europe. Firmly integrated into the Hanseatic economic and trading system, the Pomeranian towns played a key role in the intermediary trade between Western and Eastern Europe. In addition to the grain trade from their own surrounding countryside and the associated beer production, the economies of all the major Pomeranian Hanseatic towns were based on herring fishing and trade at the so-called Scanian fairs in Falsterbo and Skanør. From the 16th century onwards, the growing demand for food, particularly in England and Flanders, but also in Scandinavia, encouraged the process of estate formation and led to the spread of serfdom in Pomerania.

As regards the region’s infrastructure, alongside the Hanseatic trade routes, the navigable rivers were of particular importance, foremost among them the Oder. With the construction of the Kaiserfahrt in the Szczecin Lagoon and the Berlin–Szczecin main shipping route, the foundations were laid even before the First World War for both the expansion of the ports at Świnoujście and Szczecin and the connection to the imperial capital, as well as the miningand industrial centres in Silesia; this, alongside the establishment of shipyards, led to the settlement of metallurgical and heavy industries, mechanical and automotive engineering, and paper production in the Stettin region. Stettin had been a free port since 1898. A railway link between Berlin and Stettin had existed since 1843; this was extended in 1846 by lines from Stettin to Stargard, in 1859 from Stargard to Köslin, and in 1863 from Stettin and Berlin to Stralsund. In 1914, the state-run railway network in the province of Pomerania covered more than 1,400 kilometres. In addition, there was a private light railway network, which at that time totalled 1,700 kilometres and was primarily geared towards the economic needs of agriculture.

Pomerania was a region characterised by its agricultural nature and political conservatism. Stettin was an exception, having developed early on into the most important Prussian – and later German – Baltic Sea port and becoming a centre of industry and commerce. Owing to the high concentration of workers and white-collar employees in the metropolis on the River Oder, it also became a stronghold of social democracy early on and, later, of the Communist Party. The National Socialists were slow to gain a foothold in Pomerania. Until 1945, the rural areas were characterised by large estates, which were marked by a strict social hierarchy. Serfdom, which had become established in Pomerania from the early 17th century onwards (in Swedish Pomerania, for example, around half the population lived in hereditary serfdom by the end of the 18th century), persisted until the reforms of the early 19th century, but continued to influence the mindset of agricultural labourers for a long time afterwards.

Since the establishment of a diocese in Salz-Kolberg in the year 1000, as a suffragan diocese of the ecclesiastical province of Gniezno, had left no lasting traces, it was not until the missionary efforts of the 12th century that the ecclesiastical structure on the southern Baltic coast began to take shape. From 1140, the greater part of the territory ruled by the Dukes of Pomerania belonged to the Diocese of Pomerania, which established its permanent seat in Cammin from 1175 onwards. The Diocese of Cammin also encompassed areas that later came under Brandenburg and Mecklenburg sovereignty. The Duchy of Lauenburg belonged to the Diocese of Leslau/Włocławek, the mainland part of Rügen to the Diocese of Schwerin, and the island of Rügen to the Diocese of Roskilde. The Prince-Bishopric of Cammin was secularised under the terms of the Peace of Westphalia. The cathedral chapters in Cammin and Kolberg were abolished in 1810–11.

The Reformation began to take hold in various towns from the early 1520s onwards. In 1525, Stralsund became the first town to introduce a Lutheran church constitution. In the period that followed, the reformer Johannes Bugenhagen, who was born in Wollin/Wolin, who, as a close confidant of Martin Luther and parish priest of Wittenberg, played a decisive role in the introduction of the Reformation at the provincial assembly in Treptow an der Rega in 1534 and the subsequent inspection of the church organisation throughout the province. In 1544, following the death of the last Catholic bishop, the Reformation was also established in the Bishopric of Cammin. A Pomeranian regional church was established with its own church constitution, which, through general synods in the early decades, organised the passing of ecclesiastical laws and, through consistories, established a new system of ecclesiastical jurisdiction and administration. Leadership lay in the hands of general superintendents, who, from the 19th century onwards, were occasionally also referred to as bishops.

With the introduction of the so-called Old Prussian Union in 1817, the Pomeranian regional church became a Prussian ecclesiastical province, with its consistory based in Stettin. Following the end of the Second World War, as part of the reorganisation of the Prussian regional church into the Federation of the Evangelical Church of the Union, the Pomeranian Evangelical Church emerged from the ecclesiastical province of Pomerania as an independent regional church, with its consistory based in Greifswald. In 2012, this church merged with the North Elbian and Mecklenburg Regional Churches to form the newly established Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany.

Following the conquest of Hinterpommern by the Great Elector Frederick William (1620–1688) in 1653, the new ruling authorities encouraged the formation of Reformed congregations, a move which provoked resistance, particularly from the Lutheran clergy. In addition to theGerman Reformed congregations, which sprang up mainly in administrative centres and garrison towns, severalFrench Reformed congregations were established in Pomerania following the Edict of Potsdam in 1685, just as they had been in Brandenburg. In Swedish Pomerania, the Lutheran doctrine was upheld, and it was not until 1781 that the formation of a Reformed congregation in Stralsund was permitted.

The introduction of the Old Prussian Union in 1817 led, in the decades that followed, to the secession of the Old Lutherans from the newly established Prussian State Church; however, they had a significant following only in Hinterpommern. The large estates in Hinterpommern, in particular, had been a centre of the Revival Movement since the early 19th century and, stemming from this, of the Inner Mission. Even at that time, sources report a higher level of religious observance in Hinterpommern than in Vorpommern. Until the beginning of the 20th century, Pomerania was one of the core regions of Protestantism in Central Europe. Before the First World War, the number of Protestants here accounted for more than 98 per cent of the total population.

After 1945, the churches and properties of the Protestant parishes in Hinterpommern and Stettin passed entirely to the Polish state and the Catholic Church respectively. Today, Protestant parishes survive only in Stettin, Köslin and Stolp, comprising a handful of other places of worship in individual villages.

The Counter-Reformation took hold only in the territories of Lauenburg and Bütow following the reversion of the fief to the Polish Crown in 1637, as well as in the Starosty of Draheim; however, even here it achieved only limited success. From the 18th century onwards, admission to Catholic masses was once again permitted at the garrison towns of Stettin and Stralsund, as well as in certain newly established colonies in southern Vorpommern and western Hinterpommern – for example, those settled by people from the Palatinate. From the 19th century onwards, Catholic churches were built in almost all towns and some villages, originally intended for the Polish seasonal workers employed on the estates. From the 18th century onwards, the Catholic parishes in Pomerania belonged to the Apostolic Vicariate of the North; in 1821 they were assigned to the Prince-Bishopric of Breslau/Wrocław and in 1929 to the newly formed Diocese of Berlin (which became an Archdiocese in 1994). After 1945, the situation in Hinterpommern remained unresolved from the Vatican’s perspective. It was not until 1972 that Szczecin-Cammin(Diecezja szczecińsko-kamieńska) andKoszalin-Kołobrzeg (Diecezja koszalińsko-kołobrzeska) were established as suffragan dioceses of the Archdiocese of Gniezno. In 1992, Szczecin-Cammin was elevated to an archdiocese, to which the bishops ofKoszalin-Kołobrzeg and ZielonaGóra-Landsberg/Gorzów Wielkopolski (Diocese of Zielona Góra-Gorzów) were assigned as suffragan dioceses.

There is evidence of Jews living in Pomeranian towns since the Middle Ages. However, their numbers were always relatively small. The largest synagogue congregation was in Szczecin.

At Szczecin Castle, the Society for Pomeranian History and Archaeology had, shortly after its foundation (1824) had assembled a collection of Pomeranian antiquities, from which a provincial museum was subsequently established in the Landständehaus in 1928; from 1934 onwards, this operated under the name Pomeranian State Museum. A separate provincial museum for Western Pomerania and Rügen had been founded in Stralsund in 1858. From the late 19th century onwards, municipal museums were established in numerous district towns throughout the province of Pomerania; the majority of their collections were looted and destroyed in 1945.

Following the formation of the Province of Pomerania, a Provincial Archive was established from the sovereign’s archival holdings, which had been stored in Stettin Castle; this was placed under the authority of the Prussian Archives Administration in Berlin. Its holdings were evacuated to estates in Vorpommern and Hinterpommern during the Second World War. Insofar as they survived the end of the war, the holdings from the Hinterpommern evacuation sites now form the Polish State Archives in Szczecin, which are housed in a purpose-built building erected in 1900, whilst the holdings from the evacuation sites in Western Pomerania formed the basis of the Greifswald State Archives from 1946 onwards.^[1]

Alongside the University Library of Greifswald, which until 1945 also served as the Pomeranian State Library, the Municipal Library in Stettin, founded in 1874, was the most important library in Pomerania. In total, at the outbreak of the Second World War, some 800 libraries were organised within the Association of Pomeranian Libraries, which was overseen by the Provincial Advisory Office for Public Libraries in Pomerania. The historical collections in some school and church libraries were particularly valuable. The most significant private collection, comprising an archive, a library, a picture gallery and a cabinet of curiosities, was housed in Ostenschloss in Plathe and belonged to the Counts of Bismarck-Osten. Remnants of this collection can now be seen in the State Archives and in the Pomeranian State Museum in Greifswald (which has existed since 2005).

There is evidence of Latin schools having existed since the High Middle Ages at Cammin Cathedral and at the six collegiate churches in the Diocese of Cammin (Kolberg, St Mary’s and St Otten in Szczecin, Soldin, Güstrow and Greifswald), as well as at several parish churches. In the run-up to and during the early phase of the Reformation, the schools in the region’s monasteries – notably those in Belbuck/Białoboki – played a prominent role. Alongside the University of Greifswald – founded in 1456 and secured in 1634 with extensive land holdings by the last Duke of Pomerania – the Princely Pädagogium in Stettin, from which the Marienstiftsgymnasium later emerged, functioned as a second secondary school in the 16th and 17th centuries, at least for Hinterpommern. In several towns, the town council schools developed into grammar schools. In some cases, such as the Groeningianum in Stargard, they were founded by private foundations or, as in the case of the Princess Elisabeth School in Neustettin, by princely foundations. In Hinterpommern and Altvorpommern, compulsory education was introduced under Frederick II’s (1712–1786) General Land School Regulations; from 1825, this also applied in the Stralsund administrative district. Following initial attempts in 1732 in Stettin and in 1791 in Greifswald to establish teacher training colleges, teacher training colleges and their associated trainee teacher institutions were established in numerous Pomeranian towns during the 19th century. A Teacher Training Academy founded in Stettin in 1930 lasted only two years. In 1933, a college for teacher training was established in Lauenburg, and in 1936, a college for the training of female teachers was founded in Schneidemühl. At the outbreak of the Second World War, there were over 3,000 primary schools in the province of Pomerania.

Vocational training was provided through a number of specialist colleges, including navigation schools in Stettin, Stralsund and Barth, agricultural colleges in Eldena and Schivelbein, a domestic science and trade college in Falkenburg/Złocieniec, as well as the School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, the Higher School of Mechanical Engineering and the School of Civil Engineering, which formed a large building complex in Stettin. After 1945, academic institutions were re-established in, amongst other places, Szczecin, Köslin, Stolp and Stralsund, with the University of Szczecin (Uniwersytet Szczeciński), founded in 1984, playing a particularly significant role – including in the research and teaching of Pomeranian history.

Since the arrival of a Slavic population in the Early Middle Ages, a West Slavic dialect known as Pomeranian has been spoken on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea. With the arrival of German settlers – encouraged from the 12th century onwards by the local princes in Pomerania and Rügen – Low German gained in importance alongside Pomor. A linguistic shift took place within the space of a few generations. Whilst this process was complete on the island of Rügen by the beginning of the 15th century, in the far east of Pomerania, Kashubian – the last remnant of the old West Slavic language – survived into the 20th century. Around Stolp, there were Kashubians who had converted to the new faith during the Reformation and who, in more recent times – in distinction from the Kashubians in the regions of Lauenburg and Bütow who remained Catholic – were referred to as ‘Slowinzen’. The new ethnic group of Pomeranians, which had been forming since the 12th century from the indigenous Pomeranians and the Low German settlers who had migrated there, developed a dialect that, in linguistic geographical terms, belongs to East Low German. Due to the origins of the Low German settlers, a distinct dialectal division of the region had already become apparent as early as the 13th century. Whilst a broad strip running along the entire Baltic Sea coast shared greater linguistic similarities with the Low German spoken in northern Lower Saxony, in Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg, the southern region around Stettin had been settled to a greater extent by people from the southern Lower Saxony–Altmark, that is to say East Westphalian, area. This dialectal distinction roughly corresponded to the legal differentiation – Lübeck law dominated in the north of the region, whilst Magdeburg municipal law prevailed in the south – and also coincided with the division of the region in 1295 between Pomerania-Wolgast and Pomerania-Stettin. Middle Low German had been developing as a written language (alongside Latin) since the 14th century. With the introduction of the Reformation, there was a flourishing of Low German printed works in Pomerania. From the 16th century onwards, New High German became established as the written language throughout the region, spreading from the sovereigns’ chancelleries in Stettin and Wolgast. As a language of everyday life, Low German is still used today by older people in Western Pomerania.^[2]

Pomerania was part of the area where the Lower Saxon ‘Hallenhaus’ (hall house) was prevalent; however, due to the process of estate formation in the early modern period and the associated decline of peasant villages prior to 1945, traces of this were only recognisable in isolated pockets, particularly in the coastal areas. Following the emancipation of the peasants, traditional costumes were documented for several decades in certain regions (including the Pyritzer Weizacker, on Lake Jamund and on the Mönchgut peninsula on Rügen) traditional costumes can be traced, which were popularised at the beginning of the 20th century and have been preserved by folk dance groups right up to the present day.^[3]

Of the architectural styles of past centuries, it is the Brick Gothic that continues to shape the character of towns and villages in Pomerania to this day. Alongside the churches, it is above all the medieval town halls and town fortifications that bear witness to the region’s heyday during the High and Late Middle Ages. The ‘golden age’ of the Griffin dynasty, the 16th and early 17th centuries, did indeed endow the region with dozens of castles, these, however, having lost their function as royal residences following the extinction of this native princely dynasty and as a result of the wars from the 17th to the 20th centuries, now survive—along with their associated furnishings—only in very modest remains. The centres of around two-thirds of Pomerania’s towns – medieval in layout but often featuring early modern buildings – were destroyed when the Red Army marched in in 1945. The architecture of the well over a thousand manor houses throughout Pomerania ranged from the ‘Feste Haus’ to the villa style of the early 20th century.

With the painters Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) and Philipp Otto Runge (1777–1810), Pomerania became one of the birthplaces of German Romanticism. The coast attracted numerous artists from the second half of the 19th century onwards. Important artists’ colonies included Ahrenshoop, Hiddensee, Lüttenort on Usedom, and the fishing villages of Deep/Mrzeżyno, Rowe/Rowy and Groß Garde/Gardna Wielka in Hinterpommern.

The Art Association for Pomerania, founded in Stettin in 1834, laid the foundations for the picture gallery housed in the Stettin Municipal Museum from 1911 onwards, which today forms the core collection of the Pomeranian State Museum in Greifswald. The Pomeranian Artists’ Association, founded in Stettin in 1916, held a certain degree of significance at a regional level.

There is evidence of cantors at the collegiate churches in the Diocese of Cammin from quite an early period, who were responsible for overseeing liturgical singing. It was generally these churches that were intended to house the first organs in the Middle Ages. Fragments of liturgical manuscripts that have survived the Reformation bear witness to the high standard of sacred music in the monasteries and in numerous parish churches.

From the 13th century onwards, there are references to the spread of a courtly culture modelled on traditions from central Germany in the circle of Duke Barnim I of Pomerania-Stettin (c. 1210–1278) and Bishop Hermann von Gleichen of Cammin (d. 1289). Minnesang reached a peak unusual for northern Germany with Wizlaw (c. 1300), whose texts and melodies for 18 ‘Tones’ in the Jena Song Manuscript and who cited the poet Ungelart of Stralsund as his model.

Evidence exists of permanently employed musicians in both the larger towns and at the ducal court during the late Middle Ages. In the Renaissance, the court ensembles at the principal residences in Stettin and Wolgast gained great significance. With Philipp Dulichius (1562–1631) as cantor at the Stettin Pädagogium (1587–1630), Christoph Stecher as court Kapellmeister and Paul Luetkemann (c. 1560–1611/12) as chief town musician (1600–1606), court music in the State of Greifen experienced a final flowering at the beginning of the 17th century, closely following contemporary developments, particularly in Saxony.

As a result of the Reformation, a lively production of hymns had also become established in the context of the larger parish churches in Pomerania; in the 17th century – despite the upheavals of the Thirty Years’ War – exerted a great influence and, in some cases, left its mark on the current editions of the Protestant hymn book. In Greifenberg, within the circle of the mayor Johann Möller (1623–1680), the ‘Gottsingende Gesellschaft’ (Society of Divine Singers) existed for several decades; its fruitful work is evidenced by more than 150 hymns, which were printed in the *Greiffenbergische Psalter- und Harffen-Lust *. With the shift in musical style, influenced by Italy, which had been gaining ground in Pomerania since the 1630s, the organists of the town parish churches gained increasing prominence, particularly in the composition and performance of vocal-instrumental ensemble music. A selection of notable figures includes Johann Vierdanck (c. 1605–1646), Michael Rohde (1681–1732), Christopher Raupach (1686–1744) and Friedrich Gottlieb Klingenberg (d. 1720). Carl Loewe (1796–1869), organist at St James’s Church in Stettin, achieved national renown by setting more than 400 ballads to music, not all of which were in German. Thanks to the numerous singers’ associations and choral societies that sprang up in the 19th century, Loewe’s compositions were widely disseminated.

Printed works intended for the Diocese of Cammin were commissioned as early as the 15th and early 16th centuries from printing houses in Leipzig, Nuremberg and Basel. With the introduction of the Reformation in Pomerania, printers in Wittenberg in particular began to work for the Pomeranian court. The oldest printing works in Pomerania were associated with the royal residences in Stettin (1533) and Barth (1584), as well as the University of Greifswald (1581) and the towns of Stralsund (1628), Kolberg (1658) and Stargard (1681), which served as seats of government from time to time.

A paper mill had been in operation in Hohenkrug/Zdunowo near Stettin since 1528. Georg Andreas Reimer (1776–1842), a native of Greifswald, was one of the most important publishers of the early 19th century to come from Pomerania.

Even as far back as the High and Late Middle Ages, there is evidence of the development of courtly poetry at the courts of the Dukes of Greifen, the Princes of Rügen and the Bishops of Cammin, with clear links to the regions of Central and North-West Germany. Several chronicles have survived from the 16th and early 17th centuries in Pomerania, which deal with the fortunes of individual towns, such as Stralsund, but also of the region as a whole. The 17th century in particular was the heyday of occasional writings, the production of which flourished in both bourgeois and aristocratic circles. Alongside religious works, outstanding examples of secular Baroque poetry have also come down to us, including, in particular, those by the ‘Pomeranian Sappho’, Sybilla Schwarz (1621–1638), in Greifswald. From the late 18th century onwards, a circle of artists emerged on Rügen in the circle of the pastor Ludwig Theobul Kosegarten (1758–1818), who made significant contributions to Romanticism. Among them was Ernst Moritz Arndt (1769–1860), who, during the Napoleonic occupation of Swedish Pomerania, transformed from a socially critical writer into a publicist who exerted a strong influence on the national movement. In regional literary production during the 19th and 20th centuries, alongside a certain preference for historical subjects, a flourishing of dialect poetryis particularly noteworthy. Writers from Pomerania such as Alfred Döblin (1878–1957), Hans Fallada (1893–1947), Uwe Johnson (1934–1984) and Wolfgang Koeppen (1906–1996) were just as committed to naturalist themes with a strongly socially critical grade as were well-known representatives of this movement who lived in Pomerania for periods; of these, Gerhart Hauptmann (1862–1946) and Ehm Welk (1884–1966) are highlighted here. Hans Werner Richter (1908–1993), who founded Group 47, played a formative role in the development of the German literary scene in the post-war period. Klaus Granzow (1927–1986), Christian Graf von Krockow (1927–2002) and Christine Brückner (1921–1996), a body of literary work emerged on the themes of nostalgia for one’s homeland, displacement and new beginnings; this work reached a mass audience and significantly shaped the image of Pomerania in the public consciousness of the Federal Republic.

The Pomeranian landscape provided the backdrop for numerous feature films. The most expensive German production up to 1945 was the film *Kolberg*, directed by Veit Harlan in 1943–44 and shot partly on location, in which the leading role of Joachim Nettelbeck was taken on by Heinrich George (1893–1946), the most famous actor from Pomerania, played the leading role of Joachim Nettelbeck.

The region’s military constitution, which dated back to the Middle Ages, proved to be wholly inadequate during the Thirty Years’ War. Pomerania not only became a theatre of war with devastating consequences for the entire region, but also one of the most heavily armed areas on the European mainland. From then on, Stralsund and Stettin were developed into fortresses that ranked among the largest in the Baltic region. Even in times of peace, Sweden maintained large garrisons in the region. Prussia continued this tradition, significantly expanding the fortresses of Stettin and Kolberg in particular. Stettin, Demmin, Pasewalk, Kolberg and Stolp were home to Prussian regiments steeped in tradition. In the mid-19th century, Stralsund developed into Germany’s first naval port. From 1870 onwards, this role passed to Kiel. Several so-called ‘Imperial Manoeuvres’ took place in the area around Stettin and in the roadstead off Swinemünde prior to the First World War. The Groß Born/Borne Sulinowo military training area near Neustettin played an important military-strategic role in late summer 1939 as one of the starting points for the invasion of Poland. Peenemünde on Usedom gained international renown as the site where, from 1936 onwards under the direction of Wernher von Braun at the Army’s experimental centre – which was expanded in 1938 to include the Air Force’s testing facility – rocket technology, including the ‘V2’, had been developed and tested. In Torgelow and Eggesin in the Ueckermünder Heide, the GDR established large barracks complexes from the early 1950s onwards, which were linked to the Jägerbrück military training area.

The central event commemorating the Greifenhaus is the Croy Celebration, which has been held in Greifswald every ten years since the end of the 17th century.

On the Golm hill, west of Swinemünde, lie the mass graves of the victims of the air raid on the town on 12 March 1945. After 1945, the memorial site became a central place of remembrance for the end of the war in Pomerania. In Hinterpommern and in Szczecin, numerous lapidaria were erected after 1990 as places of remembrance for the region’s former inhabitants. Projects for the preservation of historical monuments were supported throughout the region with funding from the German-Polish Foundation. In the late 1980s, the Pomerania Centre, comprising the Baltic Sea Academy and the Church of Reconciliation, was established in Lübeck-Travemünde with funding from the federal government and the state of Schleswig-Holstein. The seminars held at this institution were designed to combine aspects of political and regional studies with the remembrance work of the Pomeranian Association. With the establishment of the federally funded Pomeranian State Museum in Greifswald, a strong emphasis was placed on the presentation and communication of Pomeranian history. Whilst the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has tended to neglect the history and culture of Pomerania – for example, by reducing staff numbers at the Greifswald State Archives and, in 2013, abolishing the professorship in Pomeranian history and regional studies at the University of Greifswald, which had been established in 1994 – the West Pomeranian Voivodeship has made considerable efforts to expand and strengthen cultural institutions. These include, in Szczecin, the Pomeranian Library, the National Museum and the Castle of the Pomeranian Dukes, which has been developed into a multifunctional cultural centre. By contrast, the efforts to establish a European Academy in Külz/Kulice near Naugard/Nowogard – where, for almost 20 years, encounters between Poles and Germans exploring the history of Pomerania were organised – must be regarded as having failed since 2013.

• Ivo Asmus, Haik Thomas Porada, Dirk Schleinert (eds.): Geographical and Historical Contributions to the Regional Studies of Pomerania – In Honour of Eginhard Wegner on his 80th Birthday. Schwerin 1998 (Special issue of the Greifswald Geographical Studies – Academic Contributions from the Institute of Geography at Ernst Moritz Arndt University).
• Bert Becker, Kyra T. Inachin (eds.): Pomerania between Break and Continuity. 1918–1933–1945–1989. Contributions to Contemporary History. Schwerin 1999.
• Werner Buchholz (ed.): Pomerania. Berlin 1999 (German History in Eastern Europe).
• Norbert Buske: Pomerania. Territorial State and Region of Prussia. Schwerin 1997.
• Norbert Buske, Joachim Krüger, Ralf-Gunnar Werlich (eds.): The Dukes of Pomerania – Testimonies to the Rule of the House of Greifen. Cologne et al. 2012 (Publications of the Historical Commission for Pomerania, Series 5: Research on Pomeranian History 45).
• Hellmuth Heyden: A History of the Church in Pomerania. Cologne-Braunsfeld 1957 (Eastern Europe and the German East, Series 3, Vol. 5,1; 5,2).
• Historical and Geographical Atlas of Mecklenburg and Pomerania. Edited P.p. by the State Centre for Political Education of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Part 2: Mecklenburg and Pomerania – A Retrospective View of the Region. Schwerin 1997.
• Brigitte and Klaus-Dieter Kreplin (eds.): The Municipalities and Settlements of Pomerania as at 1932, with additions from 1919 to 1945. Parts A and B. Herdecke 1994 (Publications from the Kreplin Genealogical Archive, No. 1, Parts A and B).
• Gerard Labuda (ed.): Historia Pomorza 1–3. Poznań 1969–1996.
• Dietmar Lucht: Pomerania. History, Culture and Economy up to the Outbreak of the Second World War. 2nd ed. Cologne 1998 (Historical Regional Studies – German History in the East 3).
• Jürgen Petersohn: The Southern Baltic Region in the Ecclesiastical and Political Power Struggle between the Empire, Poland and Denmark from the 10th to the 13th Century. Mission – Church Organisation – Cultural Policy. Cologne, Vienna 1979 (Eastern Central Europe in the Past and Present 17).
• Jan M. Piskorski (ed.): Pomerania Through the Ages. Szczecin 1999.
• Eberhard Völker, Manfred Pawlitta (contributors): Pomerania and Eastern Brandenburg. Munich 2000 (Areas of Expulsion and Expelled Germans – Study Series of the East German Cultural Council Foundation 9).
• Karl-Albert Wegener (ed.): Historical Gazetteer of Hinterpommern. Compiled and edited by the Institute for Applied Geodesy on behalf of the Federal Ministry of the Interior. Frankfurt am Main 1994 (Series of Historical Directories of Localities for Areas Formerly Belonging to Germany – Period 1914 to 1945, Vol. 4).
• Martin Wehrmann: History of Pomerania. Gotha 1904–1906 (German Regional Histories 5).
• Helge bei der Wieden, Roderich Schmidt (eds.): Handbook of Historical Sites in Germany. Mecklenburg/Pomerania. Stuttgart 1996 (Kröners Taschenausgabe 315).

• The Pomeranica Special Collection at Greifswald University Library: ub.uni-greifswald.de/bibliothek/information/spezialsammlungen/pomeranica/
• Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania State Bibliography (at the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania State Library, Schwerin; limited to Western Pomerania with regard to Pomeranian history): www.landesbibliographie-mv.de
• Bibliography portal on the history of East Central Europe (at the Herder Institute, Marburg): hds.hebis.de/herder/index.php
• Bibliography on Western Pomerania (Bibliografia Pomorza Zachodniego): www.ksiaznica.szczecin.pl/bibliografia
• West Pomeranian Digital Library (Zachodniopomorska Biblioteka Cyfrowa ‘POMERANIA’): zbc.ksiaznica.szczecin.pl/dlibra

• Baltic Studies – Pomeranian Yearbooks for Regional History: pommerngeschichte.de/baltische-studien/
• Pomerania – Journal of Culture and History: www.pommersche-landsmannschaft.de/Zeitschrift_Pommern/index.html
• Sedina Archive – Genealogical Records of Pomerania: www.pommerscher-greif.de/sedina_archiv.html

• Greifswald State Archives: www.landesarchiv-greifswald.de
• State Archives in Szczecin (Archiwum Państwowe w Szczecinie): www.szczecin.ap.gov.pl
• Koszalin State Archives (Archiwum Państwowe w Koszalinie): www.koszalin.ap.gov.pl
• Secret State Archives of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Berlin: gsta.preussischer-kulturbesitz.de
• National Archives (Riksarkivet), Stockholm: riksarkivet.se
• National Archives (Rigsarkivet), Copenhagen/København: www.sa.dk

• Greifswald University Library: ub.uni-greifswald.de/
• Pomeranian Library in Szczecin (Stanisław Staszic Pomeranian Library in Szczecin): www.ksiaznica.szczecin.pl
• Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Digital Library: ub-goobi-pr2.ub.uni-greifswald.de/viewer/
• Herder Institute, Marburg: www.herder-institut.de/

• Pomeranian State Museum, Greifswald: www.pommersches-landesmuseum.de
• Stralsund Museum of Cultural History: www.stralsund-museum.de/
• National Museum in Szczecin (Muzeum Narodowego w Szczecinie): www.muzeum.szczecin.pl
• Archaeological and Historical Museum in Stargard (Muzeum Archeologiczno-Historyczne w Stargardzie): www.muzeum-stargard.pl
• Central Pomeranian Museum in Słupsk (Muzeum Pomorza Środkowego w Słupsku): www.muzeum.slupsk.pl
• Schneidemühl District Museum (Muzeum Okręgowe w Pile): www.muzeum.pila.pl

• Society for Pomeranian History, Archaeology and Art (e.V.): www.pommerschegeschichte.de
• Historical Commission for Pomerania (e.V.): www.hiko-pommern.de
• Working Group for Pomeranian Church History: www.pommersche-kirchengeschichte-ag.de
• Pommerscher Greif e.V. – Society for Pomeranian Family and Local History: www.pommerscher-greif.de

[1] See: Haik Thomas Porada: Pomerania, Scandinavia and the Baltic States – A thematic archive inventory of the early modern collections on Nordica, Baltica and Sueco-Pomeranica at the State Archives in Szczecin. Schwerin 2005 (Publications of the Chair of Nordic History at the Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald 6). Also: Heiko Wartenberg: An Archival Guide to the History of Pomerania up to 1945. Munich 2008 (Publications of the Federal Institute for Culture and History of the Germans in Eastern Europe 33). Also: Joachim Krüger: Denmark and Pomerania. Subject-based archival inventory of the ‘Pomeranica’ and ‘Sueco-Pomeranica’ collections in the Danish National Archives in Copenhagen. Greifswald 2010 (Publications of the Chair of Nordic History 12).

[2] Renate Herrmann-Winter (ed.): Pommersches Wörterbuch. Vol. 1, Issues 1ff. Berlin 1997ff.

[3] Kurt Dröge: Bibliography on Traditional Costume Research in Pomerania. In: Reports and Research. Yearbook of the Federal Institute for East German Culture and History 3 (1995), pp. 49–68.

Haik Thomas Porada: Pomerania. In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2014. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/p32540 (accessed 17 December 2021).