Early history Greifswald was founded in 1199 when
Cistercian monks founded the
Eldena Abbey. In 1250,
Wartislaw III, Duke of Pomerania, granted town privileges to Greifswald according to the
Lübeck law.
1631/48–1815: Sweden During the
Thirty Years' War, Swedish forces entered the
Duchy of Pomerania in 1630. Greifswald was besieged by Swedish troops on 12 June 1631 when it became part of the
Kingdom of Prussia as the
Province of Pomerania. In 1871, it devolved to Germany. The Thirty Years' War had caused starvation throughout Germany, and by 1630 Greifswald's population had shrunk by two-thirds. Many buildings were left vacant and fell into decay. Soon, other wars followed: the
Swedish-Polish War and the
Swedish-Brandenburg War both involved the nominally Swedish town of Greifswald.
In 1659 and 1678, Brandenburgian troops bombarded the town. The first bombardment hit mainly the northeast part of town, wrecking 16 houses. The second bombardment leveled 30 houses and damaged hundreds more all over the city. Cannonballs of this second bombardment can still be seen in the walls of St Mary's Church. During the
Great Northern War (1700–1721, Greifswald was compelled to house soldiers. While
besieging neighboring Stralsund,
Russian tsar Peter the Great allied with
George I of Great Britain in the
Treaty of Greifswald. Large fires in 1713 and 1736 destroyed houses and other buildings, including City Hall. The Swedish government had issued decrees in 1669 and 1689 absolving anyone of taxes who built or rebuilt a house. These decrees remained essentially in force, under Prussian administration, until 1824. In 1763,
Greifswald Botanic Garden was founded.
1815–present: Germany (1774–1840) depicted his hometown in several paintings; this is
Wiesen bei Greifswald (
Meadows near Greifswald), 1820. in the 20th century During the 19th century, Greifswald attracted many Polish students. After
Breslau (now
Wrocław, Poland) and Berlin, Greifswald hosted the third-largest group of Polish students in Germany. About 1900, the town – for the first time since the Middle Ages – expanded significantly beyond the old town walls. Also, a major railway connected Greifswald to
Stralsund and Berlin; a local railway line further connected Greifswald to
Wolgast. The city survived World War II without much destruction, even though it housed a large German Army (
Wehrmacht) garrison. During the war, in May 1940, the Stalag II-C
prisoner-of-war camp was relocated to Greifswald from
Dobiegniew, and it housed
French, Belgian, Serbian and Soviet POWs with many sent to
forced labor detachments in the region. In the spring of 1945, the camp was evacuated to the west. In April 1945, German Army Colonel (
Oberst) Rudolf Petershagen defied orders and surrendered the city to the
Red Army without a fight. From 1949 to 1990, Greifswald was part of the
German Democratic Republic (DDR). During this time, most historical buildings in the medieval parts of the city were neglected and a number of old buildings were pulled down. The population increased significantly, because of the construction of a nominal 1760 MW
Soviet-made
nuclear power plant in
Lubmin, which was closed in the early 1990s. New suburbs were erected in the monolithic industrial socialist style (
see Plattenbau). They still house most of the city's population. These new suburbs were placed east and southeast of central Greifswald, shifting the former town center to the northwestern edge of the modern town. Reconstruction of the old town began in the late 1980s. Nearly all of it has been restored. Before that almost all of the old northern town adjacent to the port was demolished and subsequently rebuilt. The historic marketplace is considered one of the most beautiful in northern Germany. The town attracts many tourists, due in part to its proximity to the
Baltic Sea. Greifswald's greatest population was reached in 1988, with about 68,000 inhabitants, but it decreased afterward to 55,000, where it has now stabilized. Reasons for this included migration to western German cities as well as
suburbanisation. However, the number of students quadrupled from 3,000 in 1990 to more than 11,000 in 2007 and the university employs 5,000 people; nearly one in three people in Greifswald are linked in some way to higher education. Despite its relatively small population, Greifswald retains a supra-regional relevance linked to its intellectual role as a university town and to the taking of the central functions of the former Prussian
Province of Pomerania after World War II, such as the seat of the bishop of the
Pomeranian Lutheran Church, the state archives (
Landesarchiv) and the Pomeranian Museum (
Pommersches Landesmuseum). Three courts of the state of
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern are also based at Greifswald: • the Supreme Administrative Court (
Oberverwaltungsgericht); • the Supreme Constitutional Court (
Landesverfassungsgericht); and • the (
Finanzgericht) ==Administrative division==