1693, it was occupied by French troops; afterwards it lost its importance as a defensive fortress and became a garrison and a state prison. In 1718, Asperg was integrated into the district Ludwigsburg, but 17 years later became its own district. In 1781, Asperg was permanently incorporated into the district of Ludwigsburg. Prisoners The use of the fortress as a prison is responsible for the fact that Hohenasperg is jokingly referred to as "Württemberg's highest mountain" as they say "it takes only five minutes to come to the top, but years to come back down again." Old Empire In 1737, Joseph Süß Oppenheimer, a Jew and the financial adviser to the Duke of Württemberg, was arrested and, in a dubious political trial, was sentenced to death. The poet C. F. D. Schubart was held prisoner there between 1777 and 1787. Schubart's fate became the subject of Friedrich Schiller's Drama "The Robber." Schiller himself had escaped the confinement of the Hohenasperg by fleeing to Mannheim in the neighboring Electorate of the Palatinate. 19th century During the rule of King Frederick of Württemberg, deserters, military prisoners, and separatists from the Radical Pietist group from the circle of Rottenacker were kept at Fort Hohenasperg. By 1813, about 400 prisoners were arrested on the fortress. When his son King William I of Württemberg became ruler in 1817, corporal punishment, such as running the gauntlet, was abolished. Further inmates in Fort Hohenasperg included the writer Berthold Auerbach, who was kept here between 1837 and 1838; Friedrich Kammerer (1833); the doctor and poet Theobald Kerner (1850–1851); the theologian Karl Hase; the satirist Johannes Nefflen; the poet Leo von Seckendorff, the writer Theodor Griesinger; and many more, mostly political dissidents, who in general were held prisoner because of their anti-monarchistic views. In 1887 and 1888 a water tower , , was constructed, which also supports police radio antennas. Since 1894, a prison for the civil penal system has been located on Hohenasperg hill. In the meantime the central hospital for the Baden-Württemberg penal system was placed on the Hohenasperg. Early years of the Nazi era During spring and summer 1933, numerous members of Hitler's opposition, the Social Democrats and Communists, were imprisoned at Hohenasperg. Amongst these prisoners was the Governor of Württemberg, Eugen Bolz, who was murdered during Aktion Gitter in Berlin in 1945. At least 101 prisoners died in Hohenasperg under its hard penal system, and