the seat of the Bishopric of Chełmno (Culm), which was moved to Pelplin. By that time Pelplin had remained a small village with several pubs. Since 1824 it began to develop rapidly due to the accommodation of a number of ecclesiastical and clerical institutions. In 1238 a training school for priests was founded, and since 1835 there existed also the Collegium Marianum, an episcopal Progymnasium. The economical development of Pelplin accelerated after 1852, when the village was connected to the new railway line Bydgoszcz—Gdańsk (Bromberg—Danzig). In 1905 there existed in addition a supreme forestry superintendent's office, an engineering-works and a sugar factory. In 1906–1907, local Polish children joined the children school strikes against Germanisation that spread throughout the Prussian Partition of Poland. Up to 1920 Pelplin belonged to Kreis Dirschau in the administrative district of Regierungsbezirk Danzig in West Prussia. Return to independence After World War I Poland regained independence, and as a consequence of Treaty of Versailles the Pelplin was re-integrated into the Second Republic of Poland. In 1925 the bishopric of Chełmno was renamed as bishopric of Pelplin. In 1931, Pelplin received town rights. World War II In 1939, after the invasion of Poland, which started World War II, Gdańsk Pomerania was annexed by Nazi Germany and incorporated into the newly formed province of Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia. During the German occupation, the Polish population was subjected to mass arrests, repressions, deportations to concentration camps, expulsions and massacres. Mass arrests especially pertained to Polish teachers and clergy, and were carried out in September and October 1939 (see: Intelligenzaktion, Nazi persecution of the Catholic Church in Poland). 16 priests were murdered at the local shooting range, and others were imprisoned in Tczew, and later murdered during large massacres of Poles in the Szpęgawski Forest. On 20 October 1939, 44 inhabitants were murdered in the Szpęgawski Forest. The Germans removed traces of Polish heritage from the cathedral and the seminary, and also looted or destroyed historic Polish collections, including the library and the archive. The Einsatzkommando 16 established a prison for local Polish activists, teachers and priests at the seminary, and the victims were later either murdered in the Szpęgawski Forest, deported to concentration camps, or moved to the prison in Starogard Gdański. In 1940 the Germans shortly operated a subcamp of the Stutthof concentration camp in the town. In the final stages of the war Pelplin was captured by the