The Territorial Prelature of Schneidemühl or Territorial Prelature of Piła (, , ) was a Roman Catholic territorial prelature in first Germany (Nazi Germany as of 1933) and then Poland. It covered the territory of the Prussian Province of the Frontier March of Posen-West Prussia, but also the territories of the Lauenburg and Bütow (Lębork and Bytów) Land and the former Starostwo of Draheim (Drahim), which were parts of the Province of Pomerania at the time. It was named after its seat in Schneidemühl (Piła) and belonged to the Eastern German Ecclesiastical Province under the Breslau/Wrocław Metropolia since 1930.
History
Following the restoration of independent Poland following World War I, it regained the bulk of the territories of the Archdiocese of Gniezno-Poznań (until 1946 in personal union) and the Diocese of Chełmno annexed by Prussia in the Partitions of Poland, however, small portions remained within Germany after 1919 and 1920. On 1 December 1920 Archbishop Edmund Dalbor of Gniezno-Poznań appointed an archiepiscopal delegate with the powers of a vicar general for the five concerned deaneries with 45 parishes and 80,000-100,000 Catholic faithful. Bishop Augustinus Rosentreter of Chełmno objected to separate his three eastern deaneries located in the historical Lauenburg and Bütow Land and Starostwo of Draheim, with about 40,000 Catholic parishioners.
Nevertheless, the Holy See disentangled these deaneries of Chełmno in 1922 and subordinated them to the archiepiscopal delegate seated in Tütz (Tuczno). On 1 May 1923 the Holy See united the concerned deaneries to form the new Apostolic Administration of Tütz. The Holy See entrusted protonotary Robert Weimann (1870–1925) with the Administration Apostolic of Tütz.
On 6 July 1926 Maximilian Kaller succeeded Weimann. On Kaller's instigation the seat of the Administration was moved from Tütz to Schneidemühl (Piła) in 1927, where Kaller then took on the local parish. Schneidemühl had become the capital of Frontier March of Posen-West Prussia Province, when the Free State of Prussia had reorganised its dissected remnants of the former Provinces of Posen and of West Prussia as a province of their own on 1 July 1922.
Following the 1929 Prussian Concordat, concluded between the Nuncio to Prussia, Eugenio Pacelli, and the Free State, the administration was elevated to Territorial Prelature within the new Eastern German Ecclesiastical Province under the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Wrocław on 13 August 1930. The prelates were not to be consecrated as bishops. Kaller was elevated to be the first prelate.
In 1930 Kaller founded Katholischer Siedlungsdienst (Catholic Colonisation Service) in Berlin and entrusted Ludwig Sebald Polzin (1892–1964) with its management. During his term the colonisation service bought and parcelled manor estates and founded new settlements in Adlig Rose, Bärenwalde (Bińcze), Barkenfelde (Barkowo), Eckartsberge (Kolno), Falkenwalde (Sokole), Marienthal, Paradies (Paradyż), Philipshof, Sampohl (Sąpolno), Schlichtingsheim (Szlichtyngowa), and Schmirtenau (Śmiardowo). Later in 1930 Kaller was consecrated in Schneidemühl's Holy Family Concathedral bishop of his new Diocese of Warmia, then moving to its diocesan seat in Frauenburg (Frombork).
In 1930 the new prelature comprised 74 parishes with 123 priests dispersed in four separate exclaves, on the German side of the border to the Polish Voivodeships of Poznań and of Pomerania. Visiting the parishes in the different exclaves was a tiresome effort. In 1933 the prelature comprised 9,601 km² with 135,310 Catholic parishioners among 427,522 inhabitants. It was divided into eight deaneries seated in Betsche (Pszczew), Bomst (Babimost), Deutsch Krone (Wałcz), Flatow (Złotów), Fraustadt (Wschowa), Lauenburg in Pomerania (Lębork), Schlochau (Człuchów) and Schneidemühl.
Neighbouring dioceses were Chełmno in the northeast, Poznań in the east and south, Breslau in the south and Berlin in the west and north. While the Apostolic Administration did not dispose of an efficace administration, the Prelature had a consistory consisting of five persons, with a vicar general (Msgr. Johannes Bleske) and an official (Erich Klitsche) since 1930. On 25 February 1931 Franz Hartz succeeded Kaller as prelate.
During the Great Depression Polzin organised "Katholischer Freiwilliger Arbeitsdienst" (Catholic Volunteer Service), an employment-creation measure financed by the prelature. Soon after the Nazi takeover the volunteer service was confiscated by the Reichsarbeitsdienst, the colonisation service was gradually usurped by the Nazi party and Polzin temporarily taken into Gestapo arrest in 1935, while the Nazis fought the Catholic youth organisations.