Gros Ouvrage Hochwald vies with Hackenberg for the largest fort on the Maginot Line. It has 14 fighting blocks plus detached casemates and an anti-tank ditch. Construction started in 1928 and it became operational in 1933. It was manned by 40 officers and over 1,000 men.
The fort saw action during the Battle of France and after the German occupation it was partly used as an underground factory before being blown up as the Germans retreated. Post war, the French undertook repairs and the site was used from the 1950s as a hardened air defence command centre, known as Drachenbronn Air Base 901.
In 2015 most of the base was closed but the site still retains an active radar installation. Part of the former magazine area used to operate as the small Pierre-Jost Museum, open several times a year to the public. The museum tells the story of the fortification and of the later air base. In 2011 the [museum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mus%C3%A9e_Pierre) relocated to another building on the base.