Sweden column
The Swedish Column is a monument in the Kühkopf-Knoblochsaue nature reserve in Hesse. It commemorates the Rhine crossing of the Swedish King Gustav Adolf with his troops in the Thirty Years' War at Hahnensand near Erfelden on December 21, 1631 .
The twelve meter high column was built in 1632 by the fortress builder Matthäus Staud on the orders of Gustav Adolf .
Ludwig Bechstein describes it in his German Book of Legends , published in 1853, as “a high column resting on four spheres that supports the pedestal, in the form of an obelisk. On top it carried the seated Swedish heraldic lion with a helmeted and crowned head, holding a sword and orb in its front paws. ”This is how the column still looks today. The lion looks in the direction of the crossing, the battlefield and of the Swedish cemetery. However, the Swedish Column is no longer in its original location. It was moved inland in the 18th century because of the threat of undercutting.
Bechstein also reports that the Swedish king and four companions sailed the Rhine in a small boat and identified Spanish units entrenched near Oppenheim on the left bank of the Rhine . In any case, the Spaniards had taken a position on the Kühkopf peninsula on the left bank of the Rhine at that time in order to protect Oppenheim as a military outpost. In order to get with his troops from the right bank of the Rhine over the river, Gustav Adolf had the barn doors of the local farmers levered out and mounted on the few available boats . In this way his troops, several thousand infantry, plus horsemen and artillery of unknown strength, crossed over to the other bank. The crossing over the then approximately 300 m wide Rhine took place in two places. The Swedes managed to take Oppenheim by storm.
This crossing of the Rhine is considered to be one of the outstanding military achievements in the Thirty Years War. An immediate consequence was that Mainz fell into the hands of the Swedes.
For this reason, another memorial was set up. When after the Second World War it was considered what motive the new windows of the Protestant church in Stockstadt am Rhein should have (the old windows were destroyed in a bombing), the choice fell on Gustav II Adolf , because he was the liberator in Stockstadt and rescuer was taken.
literature
- Hans Pehle: The Rhine crossing of the Swedish king Gustav II Adolf. Riedstadt (Forum Verlag).
- Otto Kraus / Jörg Hartung / Lothar Hoffmann: The Evangelical Church in Stockstadt am Rhein - from its origins to the present. Evangelical parish in Stockstadt am Rhein.
- Eckhart G. Franz : The "Swedish column" near Erfelden and the Thirty Years War in Hesse. In: Bernd Heidenreich / Klaus Böhme (ed.): Hessen. History and politics. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-17-016323-X , pp. 205-216 ( writings on the political regional studies of Hesse 5 ).
Web links
Coordinates: 49 ° 49 ′ 23.6 " N , 8 ° 24 ′ 53" E