In the fifteenth and sixteenth century, the wealthy mercantile family Höchstetter, which came from the town, was part of the mercantile patriciate of Augsburg.
The carnage of the Battle of Blenheim was so horrific (over 20,000 men had died by the end of the day) that farmers are said still to dig up skulls from the fields today, as described in the poem "After Blenheim", written by Robert Southey, which tells about children finding the skull of one of the[3]
Many thousand men said he
Were slain in that great victory
In June 1800, the armies of the French First Republic, under command of Jean Victor Moreau, fought Austrian regulars and Württemberg contingents, under the general command of Pál Kray. Kray had taken refuge in the fortress at Ulm; Moreau diverted his army to approach Ulm from the east and, after a small group of men captured a foothold on the northern bank of the Danube, his forces were able to move against the fortress on both sides of the river. At this battle, the culmination of the Danube Campaign of 1800, Moreau forced Kray to abandon Ulm and withdraw into eastern Bavaria.[4]
Diorama of the battle in the Heimat museum in Höchstädt. The foreground depicts the fierce fighting in and around Blindheim.
^"Höchstädt", History of the Wars of the French Revolution: Including Sketches of the Civil History of Great Britain and France, from the Revolutionary Movements, 1788, to the Restoration of a General Peace, 1815, Kuhl, France, 1820, p. 183.
