The Christianization of Pomerania is considered one of the greatest accomplishments of Boleslaw’s III Pomeranian policy.

Once the missionary activities of Otto of Bamberg had taken took root in Pomernia, Boleslaw III had begun to implement an ecclesiastical organization of Pomerania.

Pomerelia had been added to the Diocese of Włocławek, known at this time as the Kujavian Diocese.

A strip of borderland north of Noteć had been split between the Diocese of Gniezno and Diocese of Poznan.

The bulk of Pomerania is however made an independent Pomeranian bishopric, set up in the territory of the Duchy of Pomerania in 1140, after Boleslaw had died in 1138 and the duchy has broken away from Poland.

With Boleslaw's death, Polish authority over Pomerania had ended, triggering competition of the Holy Roman Empire and Denmark for the area.

The plague arrives in the small Swedish Pomeranian town of (Alt-)Damm (now Dąbie) on the eastern bank of the Oder river in August 1709, rapidly killing five hundred inhabitants.

Stettin (now Szczecin), the capital city of Swedish Pomerania located on the opposite bank of the river, reacts by isolating the town with a guarded cordon sanitaire.

Precautions taken in Stettin since the arrival of the plague in Danzig include restrictions for travelers, especially soldiers' families returning from Swedish-occupied Poland after the lost Battle of Poltava (July 8, 1709), and a ban on fruits in the town's markets, since fruits were believed to transmit the disease.

According to Zapnik (2006), the returning soldiers' wives who had contact with the plague-stricken areas around Poznań were most likely the transmitters of the plague to Pomerania.

After the outbreak in Damm, the mail route connecting Stettin with Stargard in the adjacent Prussian province of Pomerania via Damm is relocated to Podejuch.

Despite the precautions, the plague breaks out in Warsow, just north of Stettin, and by the end of September also inside Stettin's walls, transmitted by a local woman who had provided food to her son in Damm.

As in Danzig, the city council downplays the plague cases to not impair Stettin's trade, but also sets up a health commission and pest houses and hires personnel to deal with the infected.

Krassow, who on his march is followed and monitored by Prussian officials, denies having infected soldiers in his corps when confronted with suspicions.

In a meeting with Prussian official Scheden, he justifies his choice to march through infected Damm and probably infected Gollnow by responding that Gollnow is not infected at all, and that the situation in Damm will be dealt with by setting up a military corridor through the town separating the army from the inhabitants; Horn from Krassow's corps adds reports that in Damm, after the death of five hundred people, none of the remaining four hundred inhabitants had died for three weeks.