The aim of the article is depiction of the scientific cooperation between historians from Szczecin and Greifswald which is continuously developed in the beginning of the 21st century. The cooperation based primary on the DAAD guest professorship of Prof. Joerg Hackemann at the Institute for History and International Relationships at the University of Szczecin, lectures held by Prof. Lutz Oberdörfer from Greifswald, workshops at the EMAU lead by Dr. Paweł Migdalski, various research projects presented there by Dr. Rafał Simiński and Dr. Tomasz Ślepowroński. To mention be in this context the activity of Prof. Włodzimierz Stępiński and Prof. Jan M. Piskorski in the German scientific life and their participation at many debates and historical conferences. The rich contacts between the historians from both Pomeranian universities are referred to in a new and original form of a Szczecin–Gryfino postgraduate programme, started in the 21st century by the Institute for History and International Relationships at the University of Szczecin and Historisches Institut Ernst Moritz Arndt Universität Greifswald. Within this undertaking two meetings of postgraduates took place where their scientific output was presented: on the 3rd/4th November 2010 in Szczecin and on the 26th/28th Mai 2011 in Greifswald. This initiative is for young researchers of importance – it allows their development outside of the only one, native research milieu. Unfortunately, the project of postgraduates from Szczecin and Greifswald is one of only few initiatives within the Polish-German historical neighbourhood.

In December 1939 the Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess performed the ground-breaking ceremony for the Oder-Danube Canal, with Austria, Poland and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia already under German control,. Besides connecting the Oder and the Danube, resulting in a nonstop waterway from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, spatial planning authorities, he saw the canal as a fundamental addition for the ‘second Ruhr valley in the East’ (Upper Silesia). The outcome of this connection would have been a widely expanded trade between northern and southern Europe. The trade might become then faster and cheaper, a wide array of strategic materials like coal, ore, petroleum and petrol would have been accessible for industry and armed forces. Due to the war progress the work on the canal had to be discontinued in 1940. One of the profiteers of the canal should have been the seaport in Szczecin, located at the intersection of the Oder and the Baltic Sea. Therefore a think tank called the ‘Oder-Donau-Institut’ has been found to deliver scientific arguments reinstating the work on the canal under the lead management of the economic chamber of Pomerania (Szczecin) in close contact with the University of Greifswald. The director of the institute was Heinz Seraphim, professor for political economy at the University of Greifswald. Under his leadership, the well-financed institute started to work not only for the economic interests of the economic chamber but also for the SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt.