Almost all the states of the old continent took part in it. In 1627 imperial troops were quartered in the Duchy of Pomerania, including in Stargard. In July 1630 Swedish forces landed in Pomerania and took one town and village after another, forcing the imperial army to withdraw. They also captured Stargard. The town and its inhabitants repeatedly had to endure the passage, sieges and billeting of warring armies. On top of this, a great fire broke out on 7 October 1635, started by the Swedish commander Colonel Jacob Bohm. Defending against the imperial army, he set fire to the suburbs, from where the flames spread into the town. At least half of the town was destroyed. For the decimated, ruined and exhausted town, the consequences of the war lasted for decades.
The Griffin wearing a morion helmet symbolises the long years during which Stargard bore the burden of military operations and its own defence during the Thirty Years’ War, while the felled tree points to a turning point in the history of all Pomerania: the death without heirs of Duke Bogislaw XIV of Pomerania and the end of the Griffin dynasty.