Germany and Poland rely on a somewhat unusual system of maritime boundaries to delimit their overlapping claims. After an initial 1968 delimitation between the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and the Polish People’s Republic (communist Poland) proved to be problematic, the two States renegotiated their maritime frontiers and signed a new bilateral Agreement in 1989. Polish concerns regarding jurisdictional authority over the navigational approaches to the Polish ports of Szczecin and Swinoujscie, and a dispute over the methodology that would be used to delimit overlapping fishery claims, precluded the establishment of a single, multipurpose boundary. This necessitated the establishment of separated territorial sea boundaries between the Parties. Subsequently, the two States redefined their continental shelf boundary. 

In 1990, after the fall of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the newly unified Federal Republic of Germany and the Republic of Poland, reaffirmed all of their previous land and maritime boundary Agreements.