Stralsund spent most of the Thirty Years' War under siege or occupation, and Swedish control of the city — formalized through the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 — brought with it the practical need to maintain a local coinage acceptable to both the garrison and the citizenry. These Düttchen were struck under that arrangement, circulating through the tail end of the war's economic devastation and into the uneasy reconstruction years that followed. Sweden held Stralsund as a direct imperial fief until 1815.
Stralsund spent most of the Thirty Years' War under siege or occupation, and Swedish control of the city — formalized through the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 — brought with it the practical need to maintain a local coinage acceptable to both the garrison and the citizenry. These Düttchen were struck under that arrangement, circulating through the tail end of the war's economic devastation and into the uneasy reconstruction years that followed. Sweden held Stralsund as a direct imperial fief until 1815.