Looking at the xml file in post
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=34444&start=0, I looked at mine:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<oor:component-data xmlns:oor="http://openoffice.org/2001/registry" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" oor:name="Histories" oor:package="org.openoffice.Office">
<node oor:name="Histories">
<node oor:name="URLHistory">
<node oor:name="ItemList">
</node>
<node oor:name="OrderList">
</node>
</node>
</node>
</oor:component-data>
To clarify, this is not the history.xcu in the folder /path/to/installation/openoffice/basis3.2/share/registry/data/org/openoffice/Office:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<oor:component-data xmlns:install="http://openoffice.org/2004/installation" xmlns:oor="http://openoffice.org/2001/registry" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" oor:name="Histories" oor:package="org.openoffice.Office">
<node oor:name="Histories">
<node oor:name="HelpBookmarks" oor:op="fuse" oor:mandatory="true"/>
<node oor:name="URLHistory" oor:op="fuse" oor:mandatory="true"/>
<node oor:name="PickList" oor:op="fuse" oor:mandatory="true"/>
</node>
</oor:component-data>
The attributes 'mandatory' for urlhistory and picklist were changed to false (as root user), to no effect. It seems that the load url bar and recent document history are not cleared after closure of writer, but after closure of X.