The deeply cut, almost one kilometer long gorge was created by the erosion of the softer sandstone. It follows the main direction of the fissure in the Elbe sandstone.
Originally it was an undeveloped and difficult to access gorge that was called Blanker Grund. When the northern village of Rathewalde was destroyed by Swedish soldiers in August 1639 during the Thirty Years' War, the farmers in the area fled into the wild ravine and brought themselves and their belongings to safety there. The gorge also served as a refuge in later times of war, for example in 1706 during the Great Northern War, in 1813 during the Wars of Liberation and in 1945 in the final days of the Second World War.
In the 1780s, the first paths for wood extraction were laid in the Schwedenlochen. This is commemorated by several dates carved into the sandstone (1782, 1784, 1787).
The actual development of the gorge for tourism came comparatively late. On the initiative of the Mountain Association for Saxon-Bohemian Switzerland, the Schwedenhöhlen were provided with a climbing system in 1886. In order to install the stairs and bridges, the gorge had to be partially widened artificially. The new hiking trail, which connected the famous Bastei rock massif with the Amselgrund, was inaugurated on May 1, 1886 on the occasion of the 6th German Geographers' Day.