After their successes in 983 the Wends came under increasing pressure from Germans,
Danes and
Poles. The Poles invaded
Pomerania several times.
The Danes often raided the Baltic shores (and, in turn, the Wends often raided the raiders). The Holy Roman Empire and its
margraves tried to restore their marches.
In 1068/69 a German expedition took and destroyed
Rethra, one of the major pagan Wend temples. The Wendish religious centre shifted to
Arkona thereafter. In 1124 and 1128, the Pomeranians and some Lutici were baptised. In 1147, the
Wend crusade took place in what is today north-eastern Germany.
This did not, however, affect the Wendish people in today's
Saxony, where a relatively stable co-existence of German and Slavic inhabitants as well as close dynastic and diplomatic cooperation of Wendish and German nobility had been achieved. (See: Wiprecht of Groitzsch).
In 1168, during the
Northern Crusades,
Denmark mounted a crusade led by Bishop
Absalon and King
Valdemar the Great against the
Wends of Rugia in order to convert them to Christianity. The crusaders captured and destroyed
Arkona, the Wendish temple-fortress, and tore down the statue of the Wendish god
Svantevit. With the capitulation of the Rugian Wends, the last independent pagan Wends were defeated by the surrounding Christian feudal powers.