Capitulation of Franzburg

The Capitulation of Franzburg (German: Franzburger Kapitulation) was a treaty providing for the capitulation of the Duchy of Pomerania to the forces of the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War. It was signed on 10 November (O.S.) or 20 November (N.S.) 1627 by Bogislaw XIV, Duke of Pomerania and Hans Georg von Arnim, commander in chief of an occupation force belonging to the army of Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor, led by Albrecht von Wallenstein. While the terms of the capitulation were unfavourable for the Duchy of Pomerania already, occupation became even more burdensome when the occupation force did not adhere to the restrictions outlined in Franzburg.Stralsund resisted with Danish, Swedish and Scottish support, another Danish intervention failed. Imperial occupation lasted until Swedish forces invaded in 1630, and subsequently cleared all of the Duchy of Pomerania of imperial forces until 1631.

The Duchy of Pomerania adopted Protestantism in 1534. With the Second Defenestration of Prague in 1618, the Thirty Years' War started as a primarily Catholic-Protestant conflict between Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor and the Catholic League on the one side and Protestant nobility and states on the other. Pomerania was a member of the internally divided Protestant Upper Saxon Circle, that most prominently included the electorates of Saxony and Brandenburg, and had declared neutrality in 1620. Facing a victorious Catholic League, the Saxon electorate switched to the emperor's side in 1624, while Brandenburg and Pomerania kept resisting imperial demands. Aware of the League's military superiority however, they refused an alliance offered by Protestant Denmark.