The barn doors of a Rhine crossing

A Swedish lion sits atop a twelve-meter sandstone obelisk, its stone paws clutching a sword and a royal orb. It faces the direction of a crossing, looking toward a battlefield and the Swedish cemetery. This is the Schwedensäule, a monument located in the Kühkopf-Knoblochsaue nature reserve in Hesse, commemorating King Gustav Adolf of Sweden's crossing of the Rhine during the Thirty Years' War.

In late December 1631, the Rhine was a 300-meter-wide barrier between Swedish forces and Spanish units entrenched on the Kühkopf peninsula. To move his troops, King Gustav Adolf had local farmers' barn doors pried off their hinges and mounted onto the few available boats. These structures allowed several thousand infantry, plus cavalry and artillery of unknown numbers, to cross the river at two different locations.

The Swedish forces successfully took Oppenheim by storm. The Rhine crossing is considered one of the outstanding military achievements of the Thirty Years' War, and the capture of Oppenheim led to the fall of Mainz to the Swedes.

Gustav Adolf ordered the construction of the column in 1632. He employed the fortress master Matthäus Staud to build the monument. The design features a pedestal resting on four spheres, topped by the heraldic lion with a helmeted and crowned head. The lion is positioned to look toward the direction of the crossing, the battlefield, and the Swedish cemetery.

Time and geography eventually shifted the monument's place in the world. During the 18th century, the column was moved inland due to the threat of undermining. It is no longer at its original location but remains in the nature reserve today.

You can find traces of this same history in the windows of the Protestant church in Stockstadt am Rhein, where Gustav Adolf II is depicted because he was welcomed there as a liberator and savior.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons