Salzburg exiles

Lutheran teachings won widespread support both among the miners and the financially powerful mine shareholders. Before a commission appointed by the archbishop, the Pongau Protestants openly declared in July 1731 their allegiance to the Augsburg Denomination. Their example was followed by the Pinzgau Lutherans, who were strongly represented in the Lichtenberg (Saalfelden) local court, especially among the Leogang miners and ironworkers. Their political leaders, the brothers Hans and Bartl Hoyer, brought Leogang the reputation of being the "most wicked hotbed of heresy".

On 11. November 1731, the Emigration Edict was published which expelled all Protestants from the region. A total of 20,000 were affected by the edict. In the curatorship of Saalfelden the figure was 646 persons, but the exact number of emigrants from Leogang is not known. The religious refugees from the Salzburg region settled in East Prussia and in Holland. Some even emigrated to North America. In Prussian Lithuania, later the government district of Gumbinnen, the exiles finally found a new home. Hans Hoyer, the spokesman of the Leogang Protestants, played a major role in the development of the East Prussian school system. Johann Herzog, who was born in 1713 as the son of a Leogang miner, was also prominent in his new home as a teacher and spiritual leader of the Salzburg exiles. The co-religionists of the Salzburg Protestants showed a strong interest in their fate.