Despite his attempts to avoid becoming embroiled in the Thirty Years' War, Bogislaw in the Capitulation of Franzburg was forced to allow imperial troops commanded by Albrecht von Wallenstein to use his territories as a base in 1627.

In the 1630s, many of the local nobility tried to lessen his power, and this problem occupied Bogislaw in the early 1630s, causing[citation needed] a stroke which left him partially paralyzed.

The conflicts and issues surrounding the personal and constitutional succession and general future of Pomerania as a dukedom were of such gravity and complexity that they resulted in the postponement of the burial of Bogislaw's body for almost 20 years.

The succession to his lands was mainly between George William, Elector of Brandenburg, the heir under a pact between the two families in 1464, and his brother-in-law Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, who had occupied much of Pomerania on entering the Thirty Years' War in 1629.

Both, Sweden and Brandenburg, exploited not only their position as superior military and occupying powers but also the succession conflicts within the House of Pomerania itself.