Swedish Pomerania

Origins

Gustavus Adolphus landed in Pomerania in 1630 and occupied the duchy during the Thirty Years' War. When the last Pomeranian duke died in 1637, Sweden kept control, and the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 granted it Western Pomerania with Stettin, Stralsund and the island of Rügen, held as an imperial fief.

Rule and society

The Swedish king sat in the Imperial Diet as Duke of Pomerania, but the territory kept its own estates and German law. Greifswald University continued as a centre of learning. Sweden lost Stettin and the lands south of the Peene to Prussia in 1720, and Stralsund became the seat of government. Serfdom was abolished in 1806 under Gustav IV Adolf.

Decline and legacy

Under the Treaty of Kiel in 1814 Sweden ceded Pomerania to Denmark, which exchanged it with Prussia in 1815 for Saxe-Lauenburg and money. It became part of the Prussian Province of Pomerania; Swedish influence survives in Stralsund's architecture.