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.

[4] 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.

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).

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.

In early 1945 Prelate Hartz fled – like many other parishioners too – the invading Soviet Red Army and stranded in Fulda by the end of World War II.

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.

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.

[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.