The Salzburg Protestants () were Protestant refugees who had lived in the Catholic Archbishopric of Salzburg until the 18th century. In a series of persecutions ending in 1731, over 20,000 Protestants were expelled from their homeland by the Prince-Archbishops. Their expulsion from Salzburg triggered protests from the Protestant states within the Holy Roman Empire and criticism across the rest of the Protestant world, and the King in Prussia offered to resettle them in his territory. The majority of the Salzburg Protestants accepted the Prussian offer and traveled the length of Germany to reach their new homes in Prussian Lithuania. The rest scattered to other Protestant states in Europe and the British colonies in America.
Background
The prince-Archbishopric of Salzburg was an ecclesiastical state within the Holy Roman Empire. The official religion was Roman Catholicism, and the state was ruled by a Prince-Archbishop. However, Lutheranism had gained a toehold in Salzburg, mostly in the Alpine mountains and valleys outside the city. In the early 16th century, Lutheran ideas quickly spread throughout the Salzburg lands along with miners recruited from Saxony by Archbishop Matthias Lang von Wellenburg (d. 1540). The mountain peasants were also in the habit of seeking seasonal work elsewhere in Germany, where they came into contact with the ideas of the Protestant Reformation. Literacy was widespread, and many Salzburgers owned Protestant books that had been brought in by travelers.
Counter-Reformation measures were already taken by Wellenburg himself, but also by his successors, such as Wolf Dietrich Raitenau and Mark Sittich von Hohenems. Under the terms of the 1555 Peace of Augsburg signed by Emperor Charles V, the principle of Cuius regio, eius religio applied within the Empire. The ruler of each state could determine which religion could be practiced publicly in his territory. Dissenters only had the right to practice their religion privately or move to another state where it was the official religion. A three-year grace period was granted to sell off property and wind up one's financial affairs before emigrating.
Defereggen Valley expulsion
In 1684, Prince-Archbishop Max Gandolph von Küenburg decided to expel the Protestants living in the remote Defereggen Valley, after receiving complaints from Matrei that a seller of Catholic tokens had been mistreated. The Deferegger Protestants were forced to leave during winter, without the stipulated three-year grace period. All children under the age of 15 were forced to remain in Salzburg to be raised as Catholics, and the parents were taxed a portion of their possessions to pay for this Catholic education. In response, the Protestant body in the Reichstag protested that this expulsion violated both the Peace of Augsburg and the 1648 Peace of Westphalia. However, the Prince-Archbishop insisted that the expelees were not true Protestants, but rather heretics who were not entitled to the protections given to Protestants under the treaty.
Contemporary documents capture the expulsion of 621 adults and 289 children from the Defereggen Valley. After five years of wrangling, Emperor Leopold I intervened and instructed Kuenburg's successor, Archbishop Johann Ernst von Thun, to give the children the choice of joining their parents in exile. However, only fourteen of them accepted this offer.
Final expulsion in 1731
In 1731, Prince-Archbishop Leopold Anton von Firmian decided to expel all remaining Protestants living in Salzburg. The expulsion edict was issued on October 31, 1731, the 214th anniversary of the start of the Protestant Reformation. Modeled after the Deferegger expulsion, von Firmian's edict ordered Protestants to leave Salzburg within eight days, leaving behind all children under the age of 12. Single men and women without land holdings were rounded up in November by Austrian troops and escorted out of Salzburg.
Firmian's edict clearly defeated the terms of the Peace of Westphalia. Bowing to pressure from the Protestant estates, the archbishop modified the order to allow families to stay until April 23, 1732 and to retain their property for three years.