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Niederhofen is situated about 15 km westward of Heilbronn am Neckar and 40 km northward of Stuttgart.
The history of Schwaigern and Niederhofen is given to a small amount on the website of the town Schwaigern (see below*) and is mentioned just with one single sentence. In extracts can be taken out from the books "Heimatbuch Schwaigern" and "Heimatbuch Niederhofen" (see sources) following summary:
Niederhofen in the upper "Gartachgäu", which belonged a long time to the town Kleingartach and both together to the former German country Baden, came to Württemberg in 1380. The first mention of Niederhofen occured in a document of the margrave of Baden in the year 1332. After Niederhofen was mortgaged to Hans von Gemmingen in 1485 Niederhofen again became württembergian in 1571. Niederhofen was protestant since 1534. The Thirty Years' War was disastrous for Niederhofen, there was only a very slow revival from the aftermath of the war. But already in 1674 Niederhofen again was plundered during the war between Netherlands and France (1672-1679), and had to suffer in the following years under the passage of troops and their quartering. In this turbulent period the monastery of Wimpfen sold the right of patronage of Niederhofen to Württemberg on July 9, 1677.
In the Niederhofen's charge register there is documented at that time the first of many charge records with which Erhardt Mergenthaler from Rommelshausen bought into Niederhofen on March 18, 1677 (see also name origin).
The parish records of Niederhofen were burned up ("theils geraubt, theils sonsten ruiniert") during the invasion of the French under the french general Melac and his burning hordes in the course of the war of succession of the Pfalz (1688-1697), when the french troops devastated Palatinate and adjacent areas. Also afterwards the Lein valley suffered often under the passage of troops due to the circumstance having a position of a convenient connection between East and West. Niederhofen suffered also under the European disturbances (War of the First Coalition, 1793-97) as a result of the French Revolution in 1789. Now Niederhofen belongs to the department Brackenheim (Oberamt Brackenheim).
The reform of the administrative districts in Baden-Württemberg had brought together the communes Massenbach, Stetten am Heuchelberg and Niederhofen which were now a larger comunity Schwaigern in the Leintal.
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