The project of forming such a society was first broached in connexion with the bicentennial celebration of the battle of Lützen on November 6, 1632. A proposal to collect funds for a larger monument to Gustavus Adolphus having been agreed to. The existing memorial, a simple stone at a crossing where the King had died, was rather popular with the locals (and some newspapers), which didn't want to have it replaced by a more pompous statue. It was then suggested by Superintendent Grossmann that the best memorial to the great champion of Protestantism would be the formation of a union for propagating his ideas. It quickly gained popularity. Großmann and others of the time saw Gustavus Adolphus as a symbol for religious freedom and self-determination. It was sort of helpful to set a new goal for the Gustaph Adolphus Memorial. Before the GAW's foundation, Großmann had dealt, at the start of the 1830s, with problems of the Protestant community in Plesná (Cheb District), then Fleissen in Austria on the border to Saxony. The local congregation had been bullied by the Catholic (Austrian) administration and e.g. disallowed for the locals to join church services and schools of the neighbouring Bad Brambach as before.