The history of the West Pomerania.

 

Pomerania was inhabited successively by Celts, Germanic tribes, and, by the 5th century ad, the Slavic Pomeranians (Pomorzanie) and Polabs. Mieszko I, prince of Poland (d. 992), mastered it, and in 1000 his successor, Bolesław I the Brave, organized a diocese in Pomerania with its seat at Kołobrzeg. A local dynasty then ruled Pomerania and also the region to the west, later called Mecklenburg. German immigration into the western and central regions of Pomerania began in the late 12th century. This resulted in the Germanization of the towns and later of the nobility and the countryside.
​Until the 17th century, Polish dukes ruled western and central Pomerania (the duchies of Wolgast and Stettin) under the suzerainty of the Holy Roman Empire. The elector of Brandenburg acquired these duchies in 1637, when the last Polish duke, Bogusław XIV, who had united them, died without issue. Sweden received Western Pomerania by thePeace of Westphalia (1648); part of it was returned to Brandenburg-Prussia in 1720, and the remainder (Stralsund and Rügen) was recovered by Prussia in 1815. Prussia united western and central Pomerania into one province called Pommern.