Over the centuries, collections of supra-regional importance have been created several times in Szczecin, but in most cases they have been dispersed as a result of political and military catastrophes. Only few works have survived to this day in Szczecin and are in the Museum's collection. However, the memory of old collections largely determines the contemporary directions of activity of the National Museum in Szczecin.

The collector's traditions in Szczecin date back to the 16th century. Prince Philip II, who prevailed in the first decades of the 17th century - a humanist and art expert, thoroughly educated, also during the bachelor's journeys, has failed in history in a particularly impressive way. to Copenhagen, Wolffenbüttel and - for almost two years - to Italy. During his reign the most important, both the works collected by his predecessors and his new own purchases became the basis for the organization of the kunstkamery at the Szczecin castle, placed in the special wing of the ducal residence, built in 1616-1619 (now the mating wing of the Pomeranian Dukes' Castle).

The program of kunstkamery was developed in 1615 by the famous German humanist Filip Hainhoffer from Augsburg, who from 1610 constantly served the prince with the help of buying artworks and placing artistic orders, shaping the policy of the collector's ruler. After the expiration of the Pomeranian Gryfit dynasty, the collections were dispersed.

In the nineteenth century, when Szczecin entered the path of rapid development, which led him out of the role of a sleepy, Prussian garrison town and raised it to the rank of the second largest port of Germany, significant collections of patricians decided about the collector's landscape of the city, including Stolting, Dohrnów, Kaselowie and others. The process of creating public collections and strictly museum institutions began in the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1878, the City Museum was founded, which included, among others, the Municipal Picture Gallery (Städtische Bildergalerie), the Municipal Graphic Office (Städtische Kupferstichsammlung), and the Antique Bronze Collection (Antike Bronzesammlung).

The City Museum (Museum der Stadt Stettin), which was created as a result of the merger of the city collections, was established in 1913 in a new building, built according to the design of Wilhelm Meyer-Schwartau, at today's Wały Chrobrego. Thanks to the patricians' gifts, as well as thanks to the activities of the first director, Walter Riezler, a great collection of antique art, modern painting and a collection of works of contemporary artists as well as a significant team of nature exhibits were gathered in the Municipal Museum. The other museum institution - the Pomeranian National Museum (Pommersches Landesmuseum) - received its headquarters, a baroque building of the former Pomeranian Land, in the interwar period.

The fate of the pre-war museums was completed at the end of the Second World War. Although the museum buildings avoided major damage during the allied air raids, the collections were largely dispersed. Part of the collection of the former Municipal Museum went to West Germany, becoming the basis for the collection of the Pomeranian Foundation in Kiel (Stiftung Pommern, Kiel), presented in the west wing of the local castle, and is now presented at the Pomeranian National Museum in Gryfia (Pommersches Landesmuseum, Greifswald).

Created on August 1, 1945, the Polish Municipal Museum in Szczecin took over the remains of the collections of former German museums, in subsequent years gradually expanding them with new monuments and creating valuable collections. In the fall of 1947, the museum gained the status of a district institution and as the West Pomeranian Museum it provided substantive care over the West Pomeranian museums.

In 1970, in recognition of the supra-regional value of collections, it was raised to the status of the National Museum. In the 1970s, the National Museum in Szczecin became enriched by two more buildings: the Old Town Hall (Branch of the Museum of the History of Szczecin) and the former headquarters of the garrison of the Szczecin fortress, which today houses the Department of the Museum of Contemporary Art.

The museum takes care of over 150,000 objects, among which are works of old and modern art, archaeological, nautological and ethnographic monuments, as well as valuable numismats. The Museum in Szczecin also has the largest collection of material culture certificates in non-European countries (Africa, America, Oceania). The museum, concentrating its interest mainly on the Pomeranian and Baltic themes, co-creates the regional and national identity of West Pomerania.