St. Johann im Pongau (''Saiga Håns'' or ''Sainig Håns'' in the local Pongau dialect, abbreviated St.Johann/Pg.) is a

city A city is a human settlement of a substantial size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agree ...

in the

state State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

Salzburg Salzburg is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020 its population was 156,852. The city lies on the Salzach, Salzach River, near the border with Germany and at the foot of the Austrian Alps, Alps moun ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

. It is the administrative centre of the St. Johann im Pongau District.

Geography

The city is located in the

Salzach The Salzach (Austrian: �saltsax ) is a river in Austria and Germany. It is in length and is a right tributary of the Inn (river), Inn, which eventually joins the Danube. Its drainage basin of comprises large parts of the Northern Limeston ...

Valley of the

Eastern Alps The Eastern Alps are usually defined as the area east of a line from Lake Constance and the Alpine Rhine valley, up to the Splügen Pass at the Main chain of the Alps, Alpine divide, and down the Liro (Como), Liro River to Lake Como in the south. ...

, between the

Salzburg Slate Alps The Salzburg Slate Alps () are a mountain range of the Eastern Alps, in the Austrian state of Salzburg (state), Salzburg. Situated within the greywacke zone, they could be regarded either as part of the Northern Limestone Alps or of the Central E ...

in the north, the

Radstadt Tauern The Radstadt Tauern () are a subrange of the Central Eastern Alps in Austria. Together with the Schladming Tauern, the Rottenmann and Wölz Tauern and the Seckau Tauern the Radstadt Tauern form the major range of mountains known as the Low Tauern ...

(part of the Niedere Tauern range) in the southeast, and the

Ankogel Group The Ankogel Group () is a sub-group of the Central Eastern Alps. Together with the Goldberg Group, the Glockner Group, the Schober Group, the Kreuzeck Group, the Granatspitze Group, the Venediger Group, the Villgraten Mountains and the Rieserfern ...

(

Hohe Tauern The High Tauern ( pl.; , ) are a mountain range on the main chain of the Central Eastern Alps, comprising the highest peaks east of the Brenner Pass. The crest forms the southern border of the Austrian states of Salzburg, Carinthia and East Tyr ...

) in the southwest. The city lies in the centre of the Salzburg Pongau region. The municipal area consists of cadastral communities of Ginau, Hallmoos, Maschl, Einöden, Plankenau, Reinbach, Rettenstein, St. Johann, and Urreiting. The setting of the city allows the area to be largely dependent on tourism,

Alpine skiing Alpine skiing, or downhill skiing, is the pastime of sliding down snow-covered slopes on skis with fixed-heel Ski binding, bindings, unlike other types of skiing (Cross-country skiing, cross-country, Telemark skiing, Telemark, or ski jumping) ...

in winter and

hiking A hike is a long, vigorous walk, usually on trails or footpaths in the countryside. Walking for pleasure developed in Europe during the eighteenth century. Long hikes as part of a religious pilgrimage have existed for a much longer time. "Hi ...

in the summer months. A gorge called Liechtensteinklamm lies south of the city. This gorge is about long and can be explored via walkways, first built by Prince Johann II of Liechtenstein in 1875.

History

The Salzach Valley, an ancient

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

mining area, has been settled at least since the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

. The settlement was first mentioned as ''Sanctum Johannem in Villa'' in a 1074 deed, named after

John the Baptist John the Baptist ( – ) was a Jewish preacher active in the area of the Jordan River in the early first century AD. He is also known as Saint John the Forerunner in Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy, John the Immerser in some Baptist ...

. For centuries, it was a possession held by the Prince-Archbishops of

. In the course of the

German Peasants' War The German Peasants' War, Great Peasants' War or Great Peasants' Revolt () was a widespread popular revolt in some German-speaking areas in Central Europe from 1524 to 1525. It was Europe's largest and most widespread popular uprising befor ...

of 1525/26, large parts of the population became

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...

. Under the rule of Prince-Archbishop

Count Leopold Anton von Firmian Leopold Anton Eleutherius Freiherr von Firmian (11 March 1679 – 22 October 1744) was Bishop of Lavant 1718–24, Bishop of Seckau 1724–27 and Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg from 1727 until his death. Early life He was born in Munich, into ...

in 1731, numerous inhabitants (called ''Exulanten'') were forced to leave the country. Many of them found refuge in the

Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (, ) was a German state that existed from 1701 to 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946. It played a signif ...

, choosing to settle in

Gumbinnen Gusev (; ; ; ) is a town and the administrative center of Gusevsky District of Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Pissa and Krasnaya Rivers, near the border with Poland and Lithuania, east of Chernyakhovsk. It is p ...

(now ''Gusev''). In 1939, following the Austrian ''

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, ), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a "German Question, Greater Germany") arose after t ...

'' to

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

, St. Johann was renamed ''Markt Pongau'' and from 1941 was the site of the

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

Stalag In Germany, stalag (; ) was a term used for prisoner-of-war camps. Stalag is a contraction of "Stammlager", itself short for ''Kriegsgefangenen-Mannschaftsstammlager'', literally "main camp for enlisted prisoners of war" (officers were kept i ...

XVIII-C (317) German prisoner-of-war camp run by the

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the German Army (1935–1945), ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmac ...

. Mainly French, Serbian and

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

POWs A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...

, but also Polish, Belgian, Dutch, British, American, Hungarian and Italian POWs, were interred here. About 4,000 Soviet inmates were killed or succumbed to the conditions of their detention. A Russian Cemetery and a monument to this camp are located on the north end of the city. The camp was liberated by American troops on May 8, 1945. On 24 June 2000 St. Johann completed the ''Stadtserhebung'' process and received official

city privileges Town privileges or borough rights were important features of European towns during most of the second millennium. The city law customary in Central Europe probably dates back to Italian models, which in turn were oriented towards the tradition ...

from the Austrian government.

Sport

TSV St. Johann im Pongau are an association football team, who play at the Sportplatz St. Johann stadium. Around the football pitch is a

motorcycle speedway Motorcycle speedway, usually referred to simply as speedway, is a motorcycle sport involving four and sometimes up to six riders competing over four clockwise, anti-clockwise laps of an oval circuit. The motorcycles are specialist machines that ...

track that has been used for important events, including the Austrian qualifying rounds of the

Speedway World Championship The World Championship of Speedway is an international competition between the highest-ranked motorcycle speedway riders of the world, run under the auspices of the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM). The first official championsh ...

(starting in 1990).

Personalities

* Gerald Mild (born 1962), tennis player *

Petra Kronberger Petra Kronberger (born 21 February 1969) is an Austrian former alpine skier, who participated in all disciplines. She was the first female alpine skier to win in all five World Cup events. Career Kronberger entered the World Cup circuit in th ...

(born 1969), skier * Iris Strubegger (born 1984), model * Joachim Puchner (born 1987), skier *

Mirjam Puchner Mirjam Puchner (born 18 May 1992) is an Austrian World Cup alpine ski racer from St Johann im Pongau in Salzburg. She made her World Cup debut on 12 January 2013 in St. Anton, Austria. Puchner attained her first World Cup podium in March 2016 a ...

(born 1992), skier

References

External links

Gallery

File:Sankt Johann, stadszicht foto2 2011-07-18 11.37.JPG, Sankt Johann im Pongau, view to the town from the station File:Sankt Johann, straatzicht bij stadhuis foto4 2011-07-18 10.38.JPG, Sankt Johann im Pongau, street near the town hall {{DEFAULTSORT:Sankt Johann Im Pongau St. Johann im Pongau District Cities and towns in St. Johann im Pongau District