Tuczno Castle, seat of the Administrator of Tütz between 1920 and 1927.
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.[2] The Holy See entrusted protonotaryRobert Weimann (1870–1925) with the Administration Apostolic of Tütz.[3]
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.
Grave slab of Prelate Franz Hartz in St. Cyriacus Church in Hüls, Krefeld.
In early 1945 Prelate Hartz fled – like many other parishioners too – the invading SovietRed Army and stranded in Fulda by the end of World War II. In March 1945 the area became eventually again part of Poland, although with a Soviet-installed communist regime, which remained in power for several decades. The new authorities expelled most of the remaining and surviving German population to Allied-occupied Germany in the years between 1945 and 1948 in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement. Polzin, who served as priest in Rokitten (Rokitno) since 1936, was expelled on 22 June 1945. Stranded in Berlin he organised the "Katholischer Flüchtlingsdienst" (Catholic Refugee Service), taking care of the destitute refugees and expellees.
Cardinal August Hlond, arrogating his special papal plenipotentiary power to reorganise the Polish episcopate, also appointed apostolic administrators for the former German dioceses now under Polish rule. Although Hartz had not resigned, Hlond appointed on 15 August 1945 Edmund Nowicki (1900–1971) with effect of 1 September as administrator for the Prelature and the Diocese of Berlin east of the Oder. Nowicki was titled Administrator of Kamień, Lubusz and the Prelature Piła (Polish: Administrator Kamieński, Lubuski i Prałatury Pilskiej), seated in Gorzów Wielkopolski. The anti-clerical communist government under Bolesław Bierut deposed and banished Nowicki from the administration in 1951. Thus Vicar Tadeusz Załuczkowski replaced him, followed by Vicar Zygmunt Szelążek in 1952.
Prelate Hartz died in 1953 in Hüls, a locality of Krefeld. In the same year the Schneidemühl Consistory, whose members then lived in the Federal Republic of Germany, then – following canon law – elected Polzin capitular vicar for the vacant see, confirmed by the Holy See on 20 October 1953.[2] In 1956 Teodor Bensch (1903–1958) was appointed administrator of Kamień, Lubusz and the Prelature Piła, succeeded by Józef Michalski (only 1958), and again by Administrator Wilhelm Pluta (1910–1986), Bishop of the titulature of Leptis Magna, serving as administrator until 1972.
After Polzin's death the Schneidemühl Consistory had elected Wilhelm Volkmann capitular vicar in 1964, holding that position until 1972.[5] With the reorganisation of the church administration in western Poland in 1972 the Prelature of Piła was dissolved and its diocesan area divided between the Dioceses of Gorzów (since 1992 Zielona Góra-Gorzów) and of Koszalin-Kolobrzeg.
The Holy See established the office of a Visitator Apostolic for the diocesans of the Prelature of Schneidemühl exiled in today's Germany. Paul Snowadzki was appointed first visitator in 1972 (till 1982), succeeded by Wolfgang Klemp in the years 1982 to 1997.[5] Currently, Lothar Schlegel is entrusted the visitation of the diocesans of Danzig (Gdańsk), Warmia and Schneidemühl living in Germany.[6] In Fulda former Schneidemühl diocesans run the Heimatwerk der Katholiken aus der Freien Prälatur Schneidemühl e.V. (Homeland endowment of the Catholics from the Territorial Prelature of Schneidemühl), an association occupied with the history, culture and legacy of the prelature and its diocesans.
Leadership
Administrators of Tütz
1923–1925: Protonotary Robert Weimann (1870–1925), already archiepiscopal delegate since 1920
^In 1933 Bütow District comprised 617 km2 with 6,070 Catholic parishioners among 27,510 inhabitants, the corresponding numbers for Lauenburg i. Pom. District were 1,289 km2, 5,654 Catholics and a total population of 62,434.
^ abGeorg May, Ludwig Kaas: der Priester, der Politiker und der Gelehrte aus der Schule von Ulrich Stutz: 3 vols., Amsterdam: Grüner, 1981-1982 (=Kanonistische Studien und Texte; vols. 33–35), vol. 1, p. 175. ISBN90-6032-197-9.
^In 1933 Posen-West Prussia comprised 7,695 km2 with 123,310 Catholic parishioners among 337,578 inhabitants.
^ abSabine Voßkamp, Katholische Kirche und Vertriebene in Westdeutschland: Integration, Identität und ostpolitischer Diskurs 1945-1972, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag, 2007, (=Konfession und Gesellschaft; vol. 40), p. 395. ISBN3-17-019967-6.
