Early settlements

The history of the Stralsund area date back to the 9th century, when a Slavic settlement was established here. Within the city’s current name it was called Stralow, taken from a Slavic word for arrow. The dominion over the land changed in 1169 with the Danish king Valdemar the Great’s conquest of Rügen.

The development of the present city itself started in 1234, when Rügen’s prince Wizlaw I granted Stralow rights according to role models from Lübeck and Rostock. The city was then colonized by Germans in the otherwise West Slav-influenced area; many came from Westphalia, Lower Saxony and other western German regions.

Booming trade

In 1240, Prince Wizlaw named the city Stralesund, which later became Stralsund, which from the outset quickly developed into a thriving trading town on the Baltic Sea, and in the 1300s it was the leader after Lübeck in the northern German area.

The city center was from the beginning the marketplace, where large buildings saw the light of day; not least Stralsund City Hall and the mighty Saint Nicholas Church. The entire city comprised extensive buildings around the current two marketplaces, and from the end of the 13th century, a city wall encircled Stralsund and defended it against any attackers.

By 1249, however, the competitor Lübeck had attacked and burned Stralsund, which belonged to the Danish krone. The Lübeckers had overcome the Danish king and were thus also able to attack the merchant rise Stralsund.

In 1271 a major fire ravaged Stralsund, and many of the city’s wooden houses went up in flames. Subsequently, many more houses were built in stone. With Stralsund’s natural demarcation of water on all sides, there was plenty of room for development in the first period, and this alone provided further growth. In the 1200-1300s, the economy grew through not least trade, craftsmen and shipbuilding, but also the ever-increasing international trade cooperation.

The Hanseatic period

In 1293, a mutual aid agreement was concluded between Stralsund, Greifswald, Lübeck, Rostock and Wismar. It was the start of the later successful Hanseatic League, where many more cities came into being.

Politically, after the dissolution of the Principality on Rügen with the death of Wizlaw III in 1325, Stralsund came to belong to Pomerania-Wolgast, one of the many historical dukes that this region has seen through time.

On May 24, 1370, the peace in Stralsund was concluded between the Danish king Valdemar Atterdag and the Hanseatic League. The peace ended the second war between Denmark and the Hanseatic cities; a war that had started with Denmark’s conquest of, among other things, the Hanseatic city of Visby on Gotland 1361. The result of the peace agreement was for Stralsund and the other Hanseatic cities that free trade continued to prevail.

After the peace in Stralsund, however, there was no long-term calm in the Baltic Sea area. At the beginning of the 1400s, the Hanseatic League became involved in the battle between Denmark and Holstein, and with Denmark’s introduction of the Øresund customs in the 1420s, taxes came on the trade.

The minor importance of the Hanseatic League from the 1400-1500s also weakened Stralsund’s influence and development. Instead of the lucrative trade, shipbuilding became the livelihood of the city.

Stralsund in the 1600-1800s

During the Thirty Years’ War, from May to August 1628, Stralsund defended itself with the help of Denmark and Sweden against Albrecht von Wallenstein’s imperial troops. After the war, from 1648, Stralsund’s Swedish time followed in the region of Swedish Pomerania.

During the Great Nordic War 1700-1721, Swedish Forpomerania was invaded by Danish, Russian and Saxon troops, and with the siege of the city in 1715 the Swedes surrendered, and the King of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm, gave Stralsund to Denmark. With the Peace in Frederiksborg 1720, Stralsund became Swedish again, and this time the Swedish rule lasted until 1815.

At the beginning of the 19th century, Sweden’s King Gustav IV Adolf wanted to integrate Swedish Pomerania into the rest of Sweden, and with a pen stroke, Swedish law came into force from 1 January 1807. However, it was the time when France expanded under Napoleon, and in the summer of the same year came the matches to Stralsund.

The Swedish king was in town, as were the Prussian general Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher and thousands of English soldiers. On 6 August the first French attack came, and fourteen days later Stralsund was French. After the war, at the Vienna Congress on October 23, 1815, Stralsund and Pomerania became Prussian, and from 1818 Stralsund became the regional administrative center.

Throughout the 19th century, shipbuilding and shipping again became the major industry in Stralsund. Several hundred ships were registered in the city and they sailed to ports all over the world. As a result of the maritime school, a navigation school was established in 1854. However, the last decades of the century saw a dramatic decline in newbuilding of ships from the city’s yards.

The industrial era also made its mark on Stralsund, which came on the German rail network in 1863, it was with a side rail for the section between Berlin and Stettin. In 1873, the city’s fortresses were demolished and it brought with it a lot of new construction, and in 1900 the first electric tram line was inaugurated.

20th Century to Today

During World War II, large parts of Stralsund were destroyed by the Allied bombing of the city on October 6, 1944; among other things, over 35% of the city’s apartments had been hit. On May 1, 1945, Russian troops entered Stralsund, and the area became part of the GDR for the following decades.

During the GDR, Stralsund was greatly expanded with new residential areas, and the economy as a port city again started with a large shipbuilding industry. Politically, a breath from the Swedish past came with the meeting between DDR’s Erich Honecker and Sweden’s Prime Minister, Olof Palme, on June 29, 1984.

Following the German reunification in 1990, Stralsund’s Old Town has undergone a major renovation, and in 2002 UNESCO declared the site of world cultural heritage. Today, new museums have been opened, and Stralsund is the political, economic and tourist center in the northeast corner of Germany.