Jena, Germany

Jena is a German university city and an independent city in Thuringia in the metropolitan region of Central Germany. It is located on the Saale between the limestone slopes of the Ilm-Saale-Platte and is the second largest city in Thuringia after the state capital Erfurt and one of the three regional centers of the Free State. Jena is also the 74th largest city in Germany.

Jena is home to the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, which was founded in 1558 and with 16,260 students is the largest university in Thuringia. Jena began to develop into an industrial city with the construction of the Saalbahn in 1874. It is a center of the German optics and precision engineering industry around the Carl Zeiss company. The Carl Zeiss combine with around 60,000 employees was also the largest combine in the GDR at the time. After German reunification in 1990, Jena changed from an industrial center to an education and science center. Numerous research laboratories and institutes are based in Jena.

Two of the earliest German high-rise buildings were erected in the city, the Zeiss Building 15 and Building 36. The 144.5 m (with antenna 159.60 m) high office building Jentower was the tallest high-rise in Germany when it was completed in 1972.

In 2008, the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft awarded Jena the title City of Science. The city of Jena also advertises itself with the name “Jena. City of Light. ”In 2016, Jena was awarded the honorary title of“ Reformation City of Europe ”by the Community of Evangelical Churches in Europe.

 

Personalities

Schiller lived in Jena for ten years, his most productive years; Goethe spent a total of 5 years here, if you add up all the days of his stays, the biologist Ernst Haeckel also lived here, the physicists Ernst Abbe and Erwin Schrödinger, Luther's son Paul studied medicine here, other famous students were Otto von Guericke and Fritz Reuter, Clara Wieck gave concerts in Jena and her later husband Robert Schumann and the philosopher Karl Marx sent their scientific work to the doctoral committee of the university in order to obtain their doctorate.

 

Business

Jena is known for the optical and precision engineering company Carl Zeiss, founded in 1846, and the manufacturer of special glass Schott, founded in 1884. Both have long been leading players in their respective industries and export worldwide. "Jenaer Glas" is a brand for heat-resistant and chemically resistant glass that was developed in 1887 by Otto Schott. Under the socially minded managing director Ernst Abbe, Zeisswerke (and similarly Schott) offered their employees extensive social security and benefits such as company pensions and eight-hour days, which were considered very progressive in the 19th century. As a result, the workers identified strongly with their respective company and Jena was, to a certain extent, a pioneer of the "social market economy". In 1942, the large-scale production of penicillin succeeded in Jena for the first time, after which the pharmaceutical company Jenapharm was founded. After 1945, the Schott and Carl Zeiss factories in the GDR became public property. However, the respective private companies continued to exist in West Germany, where new production facilities were set up under the old names (in Mainz and the Swabian Jura).

Some of the state-owned companies Schott and Carl Zeiss were reunited with their private West German counterparts after reunification. However, the company headquarters remained in the west and were not relocated back to Jena. Some production branches of Carl Zeiss Jena were spun off into a separate company called Jenoptik, whose headquarters are also in Jena and which has established itself as a renowned supplier of laser technology and optical instruments. Similarly, Analytik Jena has specialized in (bio)analytical instruments. However, the total number of workers in Jena's industry has fallen sharply since reunification. Nonetheless, Jena has attracted significant investment in its manufacturing facilities and research institutes and is considered one of the most economically successful cities in the new German states, keeping up well with recent developments. Carl Zeiss Meditec, a subsidiary of Carl Zeiss that manufactures medical technology such as surgical microscopes and eye exam instruments, has had its headquarters in Jena since 2002 and is one of the city's four listed companies (and the one with the highest turnover).

 

Seven Wonders

In the early modern period there was a canon of seven sights - the Seven Wonders of Jena, or septem miracula Jenae in Latin - that every student was expected to visit and retain. Being able to name the Seven Wonders and list them in the correct order was taken as proof that someone had actually studied in Jena: Ara (the Stadtkirche's underpass), Caput (the mechanically moved Schnapphans figure on the town hall clock), Draco ( the seven-headed dragon - a mythical creature that was made of animal bones and papier-mâché as a joke for students), Mons (the Jenzig mountain northeast of the city), Pons (the nine-arched old Camsdorf bridge over the Saale), Vulpecula Turris (The Fox Tower, a high medieval keep on a hill in the east of Jena), Weigeliana Domus (the Weigelsche house, built for a mathematics professor in the 17th century with various technical refinements that were ahead of their time, such as a wine line from the cellar to the dining room, a mechanical elevator and long tubes for stargazing ). Five of the seven wonders still exist and can be visited. However, the bridge and the Weigelsche house have been lost.

 

Sights

Theatre

Theater house Jena
cultural arena
Volkshaus Jena
Short and cabaret stage Jena (cabaret)
In cooperation with the Theaterhaus Jena, the city awards the Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz Prize for Drama every three years as part of a competition for young playwrights.

There are several free, mostly student theater groups in the city that regularly perform on various small stages in the city.

 

Philharmonic

The Jena Philharmonic was founded in 1934 as a concert orchestra and expanded to its current size in 1969. It also includes three choirs: the Philharmonic Choir (founded in 1970), the Boys' Choir (1976) and the Madrigal Circle (1968).

 

Museums

The Stadtmuseum Göhre, which houses a museum on the history of Jena, is a municipal institution
the Romantikerhaus (the former home of Johann Gottlieb Fichte) with its literary exhibitions is also a city institution. Every three years, the Romantikerhaus organizes the literature competition for the Caroline Schlegel Prize.
The German Optical Museum is currently being converted into an interactive and research museum and is closed to visitors.
The Schott Glass Museum offers insights into the production and use of glass as well as into the family background of Otto Schott, the founder of the Jenaer Glaswerk and inventor of fireproof glass.
Biological exhibitions are located in the Phyletic Museum, the Mineralogical Collection and the Botanical Garden, which belong to the university.
The Meyer-Steineg collection of medical history (since 1909) in the Ernst-Haeckel-Haus, the more than 200-year-old Museum Anatomicum Jenense (anatomical collection) and the traditional medical-historical teaching and display collection at the Institute for the History of Medicine at Jena University Hospital are open to a limited extent accessible.
A Goethe memorial in the botanical garden, Schiller's garden house and the Ernst Haeckel House in the zoologist's former home can also be visited.
In the municipality of Cospeda there is a memorial to the battle of Jena and Auerstedt (museum 1806).
The Imaginata in the Altes E-Werk is an exhibition for children and young people to grasp and understand physical phenomena.
Traveling exhibitions are shown in the Göhre City Museum, in the Schott Villa, in the Phyletic Museum and in the Mineralogical Collection.
Galleries are the Kunsthof Jena and the gallery pack of patches.
The water and wastewater museum Pumpwerk Mühltal, at the entrance to the town on the B7 from Weimar, provides information about the history of the city's water supply using technical exhibits, historical maps and rare photographs.

 

Monuments

The so-called Hanfried (Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous) on the market commemorates Johann Friedrich I of Saxony, the founder of the university.

The fraternity monument (1883), which originally stood on Eichplatz and later in front of the main building, is now in the university depot as a result of a paint attack by previously unknown perpetrators. The Schiller monument is also in front of the main building of the university.

The Erlkönig monument for the ballad Erlkönig (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) was erected between Kunitz and Wenigenjena (near Thalstein Castle).

The Napoleonstein stands on one of the former battlefields of the Battle of Jena and Auerstedt between Cospeda and Jena.

The district of Krippendorf was in the main battle area of the Battle of Jena, and its post mill served as a landmark for the armies. Today this windmill can be visited as a fully functional technical monument.

There are also several Holocaust memorials in Jena. There are several memorial plaques on the B 7 for the prisoners of the Buchenwald concentration camp, whose death march passed there at the end of the Second World War. A plaque commemorating the Jews, Sinti and Roma hangs at the Westbahnhof, as this is where the trains to the concentration camps left. A stone memorial on the B 7 between the Johanniskirche and the Friedenskirche bears the slogan "To commemorate our dead, to shame their murderers, to remind the living".

In memory of the 1,459 Jena soldiers who died in the field during the First World War, the memorial “Our fallen soldiers 1914/18” (current dedication) was erected on the Friedensberg (until 1949 Hainberg) in 1929 based on a design by the architect Emil Högg. A ring of walls with a diameter of 30 m encloses a grove of honor with a stone block similar to an altar containing the names of the dead. There are other war memorials in the North Cemetery and on the Landgrafenberg (blinker memorial).

One of the many Bismarck towers in Germany is in Jena on the Malakoff, part of the Tatzend. However, it is not a Malakoff tower. In GDR times it was called the tower of youth.

 

Plaques

On a number of Jena houses there are plaques on which the biographical data of well-known personalities are named who lived here or had an important connection to this place. Local celebrities such as Friedrich Wilhelm Demelius are also commemorated in this way.

On May 23, 2007, the first eight of the so-called stumbling blocks were laid in a public event by the Cologne artist Gunter Demnig to commemorate the Jews of Jena who were murdered by the National Socialists. Eight more were added on May 7, 2008. By 2011, a total of 28 stumbling blocks had been set in Jena.

 

Seven Wonders of Jena

In Jena there were the so-called seven wonders, with which the city advertised beyond its borders as early as the 17th century and four of which are still intact. The Latin motto that a student at Jena University should know by heart at the time is: "Ara, caput, draco, mons, pons, vulpecula turris, Weigeliana domus, septem miracula Jenae". Miracles include:
the altar (ara) of the town church of St. Michael, specifically the passage under it;
the snaphan's head (caput) on the art clock of the town hall;
the dragon (draco), a bizarre, multi-headed mythical creature made of bone, wire, and papier-mâché that may have been built around 1600 for a student prank;
the Jenzig, a mountain (mons) whose white limestone ridge glows red in the morning and evening sun;
the old Camsdorfer Bridge (pons), whose successor is still in the old place today;
the fox tower (vulpecula turris), keep of the former Kirchberg Castle on the local mountain;
the Weigelsche Haus (Weigeliana domus), a 17th-century house with elevator and roof observatory that no longer exists.
The replica of the miracle "draco" can be seen in the city museum.

 

Archives

City Archives
Construction files archive
Company archive SCHOTT JENAer GLAS GmbH
Company archive of Carl Zeiss Jena GmbH
Archive of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena
Archive of the Ernst Haeckel House Jena (EHH)
Thuringian Archive for Contemporary History Matthias Domaschk

 

Buildings

At the end of the Second World War, from February to April 1945, large parts of the historic city center were destroyed by American air raids or fell victim to socialist reconstruction plans, so that there are few historic buildings in the city center, especially around the new Eichplatz. The planning for the development of the Eichplatz is currently underway, a project that is controversial among the population. The center has already been supplemented with partly larger building complexes in the last few decades. The architecture in the city center was thus created in different construction periods and styles and is modern and partly industrial compared to other cities in Thuringia.

The most striking building in Jena and landmark is the Jentower (popularly known as the Uniturm or biscuit roll),[62] at around 160 meters the tallest office building in the new federal states. It was planned from 1969 to 1972 by Hermann Henselmann, one of the most famous architects in the GDR. The high-rise was supposed to be the Zeiss research center, but proved to be unsuitable for this and was used by the university until 1995. The skyscraper should symbolize a telescope. Around the turn of the millennium, the building was renovated and the original structure of the building shell was lost due to significant interventions in the building fabric. The tower now houses a restaurant and a hotel on the upper floors. The main user until 2020 was the e-commerce company Intershop Communications.

There are also the tower remains of the old city wall. These include the Red Tower at the south-east end, which collapsed in 1995 (but has since been rebuilt) during renovation work, the anatomy tower, in which Johann Wolfgang von Goethe discovered the intermediate jaw bone with Justus Christian Loder, at the south-west end and the Johannistor at the west end of the historic city center. A short stretch of wall, on which the so-called Haus auf der Mauer stands, runs from the Johannistor to the former powder tower in the north-west of the city centre.

Within the city center stands the Collegium Jenense, one of the oldest university buildings and the founding place of the university, it was established in a former monastery. In addition to the historic Gothic town hall (1377-1413) with the Schnapphans, the Göhre, in which the city museum is located, is also located on the historic market. A monument to Johann Friedrich I the Magnanimous, the founder of Jena University, stands on the market square. In Jena he is also called Hanfried. The main university building, built in 1905-1908, closes off the north-east of the old city centre. The old Jena city palace used to stand in its place. The only reminder of the castle is the old castle fountain in the inner courtyard. In 2000/03, the second oldest accouchier house in Germany, Jenergasse 8/corner of Fürstengraben, was restored. It was a half-timbered house built in 1556 and converted into a "teaching institute for midwifery" in 1779 with the help of the doctor Justus Christian Loder. A rare written source (edited by Stadtherr Wolter) dates from this time: the desperate letter of an unmarried pregnant woman who was supposed to make herself available to the knowledge interest of prospective doctors in this house.

In the north of the city center is the Thuringian University and State Library (ThULB for short), which was rebuilt in 2001. The building contains almost all libraries of the Friedrich Schiller University as well as a large restoration and digitization workshop. West of the ThULB, north of the city center, is the Botanical Garden and just north of it is the Zeiss Planetarium, which was opened on July 18, 1926 by the Jena architects Schreiter and Schlag and is the oldest surviving planetarium building in the world. Northwest of the planetarium is the Griesbach Garden House, also known as the Princess Castle, with a large garden, which is adjoined by the Philosophenweg cafeteria built by Ernst Neufert.

Building 15 is Germany's first high-rise building on Ernst-Abbe-Platz in the west of the city centre. Next to it is the Goethe Gallery shopping center and building 36 on a former factory site of the Carl Zeiss combine. Building 59 was the former research tower of the VEB Carl Zeiss Jena. Two houses by the Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius have also been preserved in the west of the city, the Zuckerkandl house (1927-1929) and the Auerbach house (1924). Both houses were renovated after 1990 and are privately owned. Particularly noteworthy is the only original Bauhaus kitchen in Haus Zuckerkandl.

A memorial to Ernst Abbe in the form of a temple with an Art Nouveau roof structure was erected between the Goethe Gallery, the Volkshaus and the old clinic site on Bachstraße. The monument's architect was Henry van de Velde. The Volkshaus contains halls for various events, the rehearsal rooms of the Jena Philharmonic and a large part of the Jena City Library, the Ernst Abbe Library.

Southwest of the city center is the Schillerhaus with garden and theatre, of which only the stage is left. The public observatory Urania Jena in Schillergässchen regularly offers public sky observations and astronomical lectures. South of the market is a former cinema. Film screenings were last held in the historic building designed by Jena architects Schreiter & Schlag in 2009, but the art deco style of the 1920s was taken into account during the renovation.

To the east of the city center are the Saale with the Camsdorfer Bridge and the Grüne Tanne inn (owned by the Arminia fraternity on the castle cellar), the founding place of the Jena fraternity, which is referred to as the original fraternity. The black, red and gold flag, which is used today as the German flag, has its origins here.

 

Bridges

As of 2018, 21 bridges in the city area cross the Saale (downstream) or the Saale and the Roda at the following points:
Maua-Sulza
Jagdberg tunnel – Lobdeburg tunnel (motorway: 2 Saaletal bridges Jena)
Göschwitz – Neulobeda I (railway only)
Göschwitz – Neulobeda II (tram only)
Göschwitz – Neulobeda III (bike/walk only)
Bridge fragment (district heating pipe only)
Footbridge (permanently closed)
Burgau – Im Wehrigt I (Alte Burgau Bridge, bike/walk only)
Burgau – Im Wehrigt II (tram, local car, bicycle, pedestrian traffic)
Burgau – Lobeda old town
Ringwiese – Oberaue (tram and bike/walkway)
Lichtenhain – Oberaue (New Lichtenhainer Bridge, bike/walk only)
Rasenmühleninsel – Oberaue (sports field footbridge, only bike/walkway)
Knebelstraße – Paradies (old paradise bridge, tram and cycle/walkway)
Fischergasse – Stadtrodaer Straße (new paradise bridge)
Steinweg – Wenigenjena (Camsdorfer Bridge)
Löbstedter Straße – Wenigenjena (Griesbrücke, bike/walk only)
Löbstedt – Wenigenjena (meadow bridge)
Zwaetzen – Kunitz I (Kunitz house bridge, only cycle/walking path)
Zwaetzen - Kunitz II

The old Camsdorfer Bridge, which was one of the seven wonders of the city, was removed from July 1912 and replaced by a wider one by November 1913, which could handle the increasing volume of traffic. Like all other Jena bridges, it was blown up by the Wehrmacht at the end of the Second World War, rebuilt in 1946 with the help of the Red Army and for a long time was the only Saale crossing for heavy goods traffic in the Jena city area. In 2005 it was renovated due to serious damage.

Other bridges were not built until the late 19th century. The Schützenbrücke (since 1882) and the Wiesensteg were of particular importance for pedestrian traffic, particularly because of the brisk building activity in Obercamsdorf and Wenigenjena. In 1927/1928 the Schützenbrücke was replaced by the Paradiesbrücke, a few meters upstream, and the Wiesensteg by the Griesbrücke upstream. There is another pedestrian bridge between the Südviertel and the Oberaue.

In the 1980s, a bridge was built between Neu-Lobeda-West and Göschwitz, which was generally closed to motor vehicles. A few meters upstream there are bridges for tram and train traffic, which each lead over Saale and Roda. In Burgau and with the Paradise Bridge, existing bridges from the 1940s were used.

After the surrounding villages were incorporated, the Saale bridges between Zwaetzen and Kunitz, the Burgau bridge and the Maua bridge were added. Like the bridge in Burgau, the Kunitz house bridge, which connects Zwaetzen and Kunitz, was blown up in 1945. However, the latter was rebuilt as a pedestrian bridge in 2012 and its appearance corresponds to the medieval model. Car traffic is routed over a new bridge from the 1980s.

In the 1990s, the bypass by-wenenjena was completed, which connects the Jenzigweg in the eastern part of wengenjena (often called Jena-Ost) through the Wiesenbrücke with Löbstedter Straße in Jena-Nord and with the city center.

 

Castles and fortifications

Only ruins or small parts of the former castles of Jena exist. The southernmost castle is the upper Lobdeburg. The lower Lobdeburg no longer exists. It was most likely at the end of the market. The building on the north-east edge of the old town, widely known as the lower Lobdeburg, is a new building from the 20th century. Another Lobdeburg castle was in the Burgau area (Burgau castle ruins – small remains of walls and ditches preserved on rocks next to the old Saale bridge), possibly parallel to a fortification of the Wettin dynasty, who named an office after it at an early stage. On the Johannisberg (between Lobeda and Wöllnitz) there are several fortifications from the late Bronze Age and the early Middle Ages (9th/10th century). East of the city center of Jena there are four former fortifications, the Kirchberger castles and an imperial palace. The fox tower is the remainder of the Kirchberg castle complex from the 12th century. The remains of the castles of Greifberg, Königspfalz Kirchberg (10th century), Kirchberg (12th century) and Windberg stretch from west to east. Further north on the Jenzig there is a prehistoric rampart. In the north you will find the Kunitzburg ruins, actually Gleisberg Castle, a former seat of Reich ministerials. Certainly there were a number of fortified aristocratic residences within the incorporated villages, such as in Drackendorf, in Kunitz, in Isserstedt and in Lichtenhain.

In Jena itself, on the site of today's main building of the Friedrich Schiller University, there was the city palace, a former moated castle that was the seat of government of the Duchy of Saxony-Jena from 1670 to 1692. It had to make way for the new university building around 1900, which was inaugurated in 1908 on the occasion of the 350th university anniversary. The foundation walls of a castle tower have been preserved.

 

Churches

Many important churches belong to the church district of Jena. In the city center is the late Gothic three-aisled town church of St. Michael, the evangelical parochial church (main church) of Jena. Its predecessor, an old Romanesque parish church that was probably built in the 12th century, underwent several modifications, especially when the Cistercian nunnery was built in 1301, which no longer exists. The nave of today's church was built in 1380-1506, the tower 1486-1557. It is the largest hall church in East Thuringia. Martin Luther had preached here several times. His bronze tombstone (but not his grave) has been here since 1571. Worth mentioning is the church's restored Renaissance single-hand clock. The Church Cycle Path Jena - Thalbürgel connects the town church of St. Michael with the monastery church of Thalbürgel and leads past four other churches in the Jena church district.

Parts of the Roman Catholic Church of St. John the Baptist on Wagnergasse in the city center have existed since the 9th century. Therefore, the church is considered one of the oldest in Jena. The former garrison church, now Friedenskirche, actually Johann-Georgs-Kirche stands near the Catholic church. After Jena had become the capital of the Duchy of Saxe-Jena in 1672, the church was built on the site of the old Johannisfriedhof in 1686-1693 on the advice of Johann-George II, Duke of Saxe-Eisenach, because the old cemetery chapel was in a very poor condition and a renovation would have cost more than a new build, and named it after him. In 1743 it was assigned to the Jena garrison community by Duke Ernst August of Saxe-Weimar, hence the name garrison church. In the spring of 1938, Thuringian evangelical pastors were sworn in to Adolf Hitler. In 1946 it was renamed the Friedenskirche.

Other churches played an important role in the city's history, such as the Collegium Church, the university church of the Collegium Jenense, which was created from the former Dominican monastery at the south-west end of the old town. Not far from there was the Carmelite monastery on Engelplatz. The Church of St. Nicolaus, which stood in front of the town in the area of today's Spittelplatz, was a place of prayer for travelers and the sick.

According to some researchers, one of the predecessors of the Schiller Church "Our Lady" was the church of old Jani, which was mentioned in 937 in connection with Kirchberg Castle. The first parts were in the 14./15. century built. The construction of the nave was only "provisionally" finished in 1557. Friedrich Schiller and Charlotte von Lengefeld were married here on February 22, 1790.

The church of St. Peter in the district of Lobeda is probably the oldest church in Jena, as it is a so-called original parish, which was the center of the deanery of Lobeda within the diocese of Naumburg until the Reformation. The village church of St. Marien in Zwaetzen was formerly the seat of the Thuringian Ballei of the Teutonic Order. In the Church of the Resurrection in Drackendorf is the burial place of the von Ziegesar family, who were close friends of Goethe. The “bird pastor” Christian Ludwig Brehm also preached here. According to the latest research, the town of Leutra with the former fortified church of St. Nikolaus in the Leutra Valley developed from the Liuthraha mentioned in the 9th century.

The Trinity Church is located in the district of Burgau. It dates from 1330 and belongs to the parish of Lobeda.

 

Graveyards

The oldest cemetery in Jena, which dates back to the 9th century, was discovered in the area of the Church of Our Lady in Wenigenjena. The city archaeologist Matthias Rupp therefore assumes that the origin and the first settlement area of Jena is in Wenigenjena.

The largest cemetery is the North Cemetery; the second largest is the Ostfriedhof, which was inaugurated in 1912. There is also the historically significant St. John's Cemetery, which was probably built outside the city walls as part of the planned city planning of Jena and has been used since the Middle Ages. In the course of the 19th century it became too small for the expanding city, so the North Cemetery was created. The Johannisfriedhof has only been used as a park since 1978. The Friedenskirche and also the grave of Carl Zeiss are located on its premises. The Johannisfriedhof used to extend to the Catholic church, but it was greatly reduced in size when today's federal highway 7 to Weimar was built.

The incorporated villages also have their own cemeteries.

The tombs of the pastors and noblemen of the city are in St. Michael, in the Collegiate Church, in the Carmelite monastery, in the hospital and in St. Nicolaus.

 

Parks

Volkspark Oberaue
paradise
Botanical Garden
Grießbach Garden
Friedensberg with war memorial
Goethe Park in Drackendorf
Schiller's garden with little house
Park on the Leutra in Jena-West
Lobdepark in Neulobeda-Ost
Triessnitz in Winzerla
country festivals
Bank of the Saale in Wenigenjena
Johannisfriedhof (Jena) (former cemetery)

 

Sports

In 2021, the city applied to host a four-day program for an international delegation to the Special Olympics World Summer Games 2023 in Berlin. In 2022 she was selected to host Special Olympics Latvia. This made it part of the largest municipal inclusion project in the history of the Federal Republic with more than 200 host towns.

 

Regular events

March/April: Black Beer Night (suspended in 2017)
April: wood market
April/May: Cellu l'art short film festival
April/May: Jazz Spring
April/May: Creative Arena
May: Spring Market
May/June: “Horizontale” long-distance hike around Jena
June: Festival de Colores, Long Night of Museums
June/July: Camsdorf Bridge Festival
July: pottery market
July to August: Kulturarena, seven-week open-air music festival in the center
August/September: Thuringian Chamber Music Days (every two years)
September: Fountain Festival at the Romantic House
September/October: Old Town Festival
October/November: Jena Jazz Days
October/November: Irish Days
October/November: Creative Arena
November: Lichtbildarena, three-day festival with live slide reports and culture
November: Theater on the move, international dance and movement theater festival in the Theaterhaus (every two years)
December: Christmas market

 

Leisure and sports facilities

There are several sports fields in Jena. The largest is the Ernst-Abbe-Sportfeld, the home ground of FC Carl Zeiss Jena, with a capacity of 12,630 spectators. There is also the post sports field in Jena-Ost next to the Ostbad and a sports field in Jena-Zwaetzen.

Most of the Oberaue university sports grounds are not far from the stadium. It houses the USV Jena, the largest sports club in Thuringia. The university sports center includes three playing fields that can be used multifunctionally. The main square with athletics facility holds 2000 spectators. The most popular departments of the USV Jena are the FF USV Jena (women's soccer in the 1st league) and the rugby department, which has a women's team in the regional league and a men's team in the 2nd federal league. The USV also maintains a three-field hall not far from the USZ. The football clubs SV Schott Jena and SV Jenapharm Jena play their home games in the sports center Oberaue.

The hall with the largest capacity is the Sparkassen-Arena, venue of the basketball Bundesliga team Science City Jena. It can accommodate up to 3,000 spectators for basketball games.

In addition, the Werner-Seelenbinder-Halle in Neulobeda-West, which offers space for 1,500 spectators, is used by the Jena Caputs wheelchair basketball club and is generally the venue for small events.

There are also sports halls from various schools and the sports hall complex of TuS Jena opposite the Ernst-Abbe-Sportfeld. This is also used by the sports high school.

In the warm season, water sports are practiced on the Saale in the form of canoeing, kayaking and rowing boats. In recent years, the Jena section of the Saale has also been expanded for water sports. The relevant clubs are located on the western bank of the Saale. There is also a slalom course on the river here.

The golf course of the Golf Club Weimar-Jena e. V

Aviation is based at the Jena-Schöngleina airfield. Occasionally hang gliders, paragliders, paragliders and paramotor pilots use the slopes around Jena to take off. When the weather is good, the paradise is used as a launch zone for hot-air balloon rides.

There is a training facility for dogs near the Landgrafen.

 

What to do

FC Carl Zeiss Jena, the most successful football club from Thuringia to date, has its home stadium in the Ernst-Abbe-Sportfeld in Oberaue, south of the Rasenmühleninsel. After two years in the second division and four years in the third division, the club played in the Regionalliga Nordost. In 2017, they were promoted back to the third division. The stadium holds 12,630 spectators; the grandstand is covered, with fans sharing the south stand with fans of the away team. Tickets are available online or at the tourist information office. Admission prices start at 9 euros for a standing room and 12 euros for a seated room. The parking situation may be tense before games, so it is better to arrive in good time. We recommend parking on and in Burgau Park and arriving by tram. (Line 5 towards Ernst-Abbe-Platz).
The club's biggest success was reaching the final of the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1981, which they lost 2-1 to Dinamo Tiflis in Düsseldorf. On the way there, Jena defeated AS Roma, FC Valencia, Newport County and Benfica Lisbon in a legendary game.

 

Bathe

1 GalaxSea leisure pool, Rudolstädter Strasse 37, 07745 Jena. Tel.: +49 (0)3641 42 92 10 Adventure pool with wave pool, two tube slides, play and bathing area for children, sauna area and more. Open: Monday from 11 a.m., otherwise open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., early swimming on various days. Price: adults €7 during the week, €1 more at the weekend.
2 Swimming pool Jena-Lobeda, Karl-Marx-Allee 9, 07747 Jena. Tel: +49 3641 429213. 25 meter pool. Open: Public swimming is Saturday 6pm to 8pm and Sunday 3pm to 5pm.
3 Ostbad Jena, Am Erlkönig 3, 07749 Jena. Tel.: +49 3641 429210. Outdoor pool with toddler pool, non-swimmer pool with wide slide, sports pool and snack bar with sun terrace. Open: Open from mid-May to mid-September. Price: adults €3.50.
4 Südbad/Schleichersee, Oberaue, 07745 Jena. Tel.: +49 3641 429210. Natural bathing lake with non-swimmer and swimmer areas, sandy beach, sunbathing area with giant trampoline and small children's pool. Open: Open from mid-May to mid-September. Price: adults €3.50.

 

Hike

SaaleHorizontale. A 71 km long hiking trail along the shell limestone slopes on both sides of the Saale between Jena and Dornburg. The trail runs on narrow paths through steep shell limestone slopes and offers views of the middle Saale valley, villages, castles and palaces and of course Jena. Individual stages are described on the homepage with arrival and departure information so that they can be carried out as separate hikes, there is also a dynamic map and an elevation profile and information on places to stop for refreshments.
Hiking in the Jena Forest. On the website of the Berggesellschaft Forsthaus e.V. you will find a hiking map as a pdf and hiking suggestions around the Forsthaus (see under excursion restaurants) and the Bismarck Tower.

 

Getting in

By plane
The nearest commercial airport with scheduled flights is Leipzig Halle Airport, which can be reached in about two hours. Frankfurt Airport is about three to three and a half hours away by train.

Schöngleina Airport (ICAO: EDBJ), about 10km east of the city, is only of local importance for private jets.

By train
The direct connection with long-distance trains on the Saalbahn is history, apart from a few ICs and a pair of ICE trains to Berlin at the end of the day. The next frequent long-distance stops are the main stations in Erfurt, Halle and Leipzig. Regional express trains run to Erfurt almost every half hour during the day, the journey time is just over half an hour. Regional trains from Halle, Leipzig, Saalfeld and Nuremberg now operate on the Saalbahn. Regional trains run every two hours from the directions of Glauchau, Greiz, Altenburg and Göttingen. These IC trains can also be used between Erfurt and Gera with local transport tickets. The trains running in the east-west direction stop at Westbahnhof, the largest station in the city in terms of passenger numbers. Jena's secret main station is Göschwitz station, which is the crossing point of the north-south and east-west routes. Jena-Göschwitz is 5km south of the city center, but has been well connected to the public transport network with its own tram line since the end of 2009.

By bus
The central bus station is located at the Paradiesbahnhof. The extra-urban bus service in the surrounding Saale-Holzland district is operated by JES Verkehrsgesellschaft mbH.

Flixbus operates several long-distance bus lines with which Jena can be reached, including from/to Düsseldorf via Erfurt, Giessen, Cologne, to Berlin, to Munich or Memmingen via Bamberg, Nuremberg, to Prague via Chemnitz, to Apparently via Würzburg, Stuttgart, Karlsruhe , to Hamburg via Nordhausen, Hanover, to Essen via Giessen, Siegen and to Saarbrücken via Frankfurt.

On the street
Jena is not far from the Hermsdorfer Kreuz, where the A4 crosses the A9 (E49/E51). If you are traveling via the A 9, you must follow the signs for “A 4 Frankfurt”. In the Jena area, the six-lane widening of the A 4 has now been completed. Be warned of the speed camera in the new Lobeda enclosure. The speed limit here is 80!

In addition to secondary roads, two federal roads also run through Jena:

The B7 Gera-Jena-Weimar and the
B88 Naumburg-Jena-Rudolstadt.
Both federal roads do not have any bypasses. In particular, those arriving from the direction of Saalfeld (B85) must expect longer waiting times in Rudolstadt. For once, the train is faster.

By boat
Although Jena is on the Saale, the largest river in Thuringia, it is only navigable from the mouth of the Elbe as far as Halle. From the mouth of the Unstrut near Naumburg, however, it is already navigable with small boats.

By bicycle
The Saale Cycle Path runs north-south and the Thuringian chain of towns runs east-west through the town.

 

Get around

Most downtown destinations can easily be explored on foot. Especially in the rush hour you should avoid using the car.

The public transport network (tram and bus) operated by the Jena local transport company is very dense and well connected. The tram stops are accessible 24 hours a day. Tickets can be purchased in the vehicles at machines, at the JeNah branch on the Holzmarkt or at ticket machines at selected stops.

The tram network consists of five lines that run until midnight. At night, lines 1 and 2 run every hour:
Line 1 Zwaetzen - Löbdergraben (city center) - Paradiesbahnhof - Göschwitz station - Lobeda-West
Line 2 Winzerla - Paradiesbahnhof West - Löbdergraben (city center) - Jena-Ost
Line 3 Winzerla - Göschwitz train station - Lobeda West - Lobeda East
Line 4 Zwaetzen - Löbdergraben (city center) - Paradiesbahnhof - Lobeda - Lobeda-West
Line 5 Ernst-Abbe-Platz - Holzmarkt (city center) - Paradiesbahnhof - Lobeda - Lobeda-Ost

The following bus lines open up the city area in addition to the tram:
Line 10 Teichgraben (city center) - Westbahnhofstraße - Ernst Abbe University - Beutenberg Campus - Damaschkeweg - Burgaupark
Line 11 Teichgraben (city center) - Westbahnhofstraße - Ernst Abbe University - Beutenberg Campus - Ammerbach
Line 12 Teichgraben (city center) - Westbahnhofstraße - Ernst Abbe University - Beutenberg Campus - Winzerla - Göschwitz
Line 14 Schlegelsberg - Holzmarkt (city center) - Langetal
Line 15 Westbahnhof - Löbdergraben (city center) - Saalbahnhof - Rautal
Line 16 Isserstedt Globus - Mühltal - Teichgraben and Löbdergraben (city center) - Ziegenhainer Tal - Ziegenhain (call-collective taxi from 9 p.m.)
Line 18 Winzerla - Göschwitz train station - Maua - Leutra
Line 28 Isserstedt Ort - city center - bus station
Line 41 Wogau/Jenapriessnitz – Jena-Ost – bus station – Westbahnhof
Line 42 Lobeda-West - Neue Schenke - Lobeda-Ost
Line 43 bus station - Flutgraben - Kunitz
Line 44 Mühltal – Remderoda (call-collective taxi)
Line 47 bus station - Wöllnitz - Lobeda-Ost - Ilmnitz
Line 48 bus station - Wöllnitz - Winzerla - Göschwitz - Maua

 

Shopping

In the Goethe Gallery and the Neue Mitte (in the JenTower) you can find almost everything you need. At the Holzmarkt, various shops and leisure/service companies are housed in the Holzmarkt-Passage on both sides of the tram.

There are also other shopping centers such as the Burgau Park in Burgau and the Schillerpassage on the banks of the Saale (near Inselplatz/Saalbahnhof).

In Jena-Nord there is a Kaufland market.

The weekly market is held on the market square on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Saturdays from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Around 60 traders offer seasonal fruit and vegetables, regional sausage, cheese, baked goods and meat products, as well as flowers and garden products.
In the ticket office area of the botanical garden (see above) there is a large selection of plant seeds, seed bags can be bought for 1€.
Jena mustard factory and the small mustard museum, Drackendorf-Center 3, 07751 Jena. Tel.: +49 174 4681751. Mostly hand-made mustard without chemical additives. Also mustard pasta, mustard chocolate and mustard schnapps. Open: Tuesday to Friday 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

 

Eat

Thuringian specialties are the Thuringian Rostbratwurst and Rostbrätel. They are delicious at the mobile Grillteufel stands that can be found everywhere. There is a large selection of menus in the Noll (Oberlauengasse), in the Stilbruch (Wagnergasse) and in most other restaurants. As an East German university city, Jena offers quite good value for money in the catering trade compared to West German cities.

Cheap
1 Café Immergrün, Jenergasse 6, 07745 Jena. Tel.: +49 3641 447313. Very student-oriented, in a nice atmosphere and at reasonable prices. The home-baked cake is recommended, and board games can also be borrowed free of charge. Open: Monday - Saturday 11 a.m. - 1 a.m., Sunday from 10 a.m. Price: dishes for 3€ - 6€.
2 Fritz Mitte frying station, Johannisplatz 17, 07743 Jena. A long queue often forms in front of Fritz Mitte, which serves Belgian fries with Berlin currywurst and Astra beer. The special feature is the large selection of mayonnaise. The "Mantaplatte" is available for 3.30 euros. Open: daily from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Tuesday to Friday until 1 a.m.

Furthermore, due to the high number of students, Jena offers a choice of several canteens where students and guests can eat cheaply. The largest is on Ernst-Abbe-Platz and offers breakfast, lunch, afternoon catering and dinner (8 a.m. to 8 p.m.). The second large canteen is on Philosophenweg, which many students say offers the better dishes. There are two more cafeterias in the library and in the old main university building.

Medium
3 Hotel & Braugasthof Papiermühle, Erfurter Strasse 102, 07743 Jena. Tel.: +49 3641 45980. Cozy brewery inn with beer garden. Pils, dark and bock beer from our own production. Open: Daily from 11:30 a.m. to midnight. Price: Main courses from €10.00.
4 Restaurant Zum Ziegenhainer, Edelhofgasse 3, 07749 Jena. Tel.: +49 3641 360473. Goat dishes are on the menu all year round. In summer with garden terrace. Open: Monday to Friday 12.00 - 14.00 and 18.00 - 22.00, Saturday 11.00 - 22.00, Sunday 11.00 - 17.00, closed on Tuesday. Price: Main courses from €7.50.
5 Wilhelmshöhe, Burgweg 75, 07749 Jena. Tel.: +49 3641 59990. Panorama restaurant with a view of Jena. Open: Wednesday to Sunday 12:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m., closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Price: Main courses 10€ - 17€.
6 Ammerbacher Hof, Coppanzer Weg 2, 07745 Jena. Tel.: +49 3641 609746. Regional and seasonal cuisine, beer garden, in the district of Ammerbach. Open: Tuesday to Sunday 11 a.m. - 8 p.m., Friday, Saturday until 11 p.m., closed on Mondays.
7 "Daheme" tavern, Johannisplatz 15, 07743 Jena. Phone: +49 3641 2698225, email: wirtshaus@daheme-jena.de. Regional and seasonal warm cuisine until 11 p.m. in the center. Open: Monday to Sunday 11.30 a.m. - 01.00 a.m. Price: Main courses from €8.50.
8 Gasthaus zum Roten Hirsch, Holzmarkt 10, 07743 Jena

Upscale
9 Landgraves, Landgrafenstieg 25, 07743 Jena. Panoramic restaurant with fine cuisine. The beer garden is open from April to September. On the weekends, sausages, meatballs, trout, ribs, wild boar and burgers are grilled. Open: Tuesday to Thursday 3:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m., Friday and Saturday 11:30 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., Sundays and public holidays: 11:30 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., kitchen closes at 9:00 p.m., closed on Mondays. Price: Main courses 13€ - 25€.
10 Scala Tower Restaurant, JenTower 27.-29. Upper floor, Leutragraben 1, 07743 Jena. Tel.: +49 3641 35 66 66. In the Jentower at the top. Open: Monday to Friday, 07:00 - 10:00 panoramic breakfast, 12:00 - 23:00 restaurant, hot meals 12:00 - 14:00 and 18:00 - 22:00, weekends and public holidays only from 08:00 open. Price: main courses from €27.

Vegetarian, vegan, organic
Organically grown food is available at 11 Ricarda-Huch-Haus, Löbdergraben 7. Tel.: +49 3641 828486, mobile: +49 170 9609600, email: post@ricarda-huch-haus.de.
12 vegeTable, Ernst-Abbe-Platz 5,07743 Jena. Often vegan dishes. Open: Lunch Monday to Friday from 11am to 2.30pm. Price: The menu shows student prices, guests pay a surcharge.

Excursion restaurants
13 Berggaststätte Jenzighaus, Am Jenzig 99, 07749 Jena. Tel.: +49 3641 444780. Traditional Thuringian cuisine and a panoramic view of the Saale valley. From the Jenzig car park, the ascent to the inn takes about 15 minutes on foot. Open: Thursday - Sunday 11am - 6pm, closed in very bad weather, call ahead.
14 Fox Tower, Turmgasse 26, 07749 Jena. Tel.: +49 3641 360606. Mountain restaurant high above the Saale, with Thuringian specialties. From the car park at the Steinkreuz vantage point at the end of the wooden path, the Fuchsturm can be reached after a 1.6-kilometer walk. Open: Tuesday to Friday 11:30 a.m. - 9:00 p.m., Saturday 11:00 a.m. - 11:00 p.m. and Sunday 10:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m., closed on Mondays.
15 Lobdeburgklause, Lobdeburgweg 25, 07747 Jena. Tel.: +49 3641 507490. In the forest above Jena-Lobeda, there are parking spaces in front of the restaurant, or from the public parking lot at the foot of the mountain with a short walk of about 10 minutes. Open: Wednesday to Friday 12.00 to 22.00, Saturday 12.00 to 24.00, Sunday public holidays 10.00 to 20.00. Price: Main courses 10€ - 16€.
16 Forsthaus, Forstweg 88, 07745 Jena. Tel.: +49 3641 615277. Excursion restaurant with Thuringian cuisine in the middle of the forest. Open: Daily from 11 a.m., including Sundays and public holidays, Mondays and Tuesdays are days off.

Beer gardens
17 Am Wehr beer garden, Göschwitzer Strasse 11, 07745 Jena. Tel.: +49 3641 618658. You sit under linden trees and the Saale reaches up to the beer garden. Open: in summer daily from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., Sunday and Monday until 10 p.m., in winter Tuesday to Saturday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Sunday and Monday until 9 p.m.
Der Strand22, in front of the Neutor 5, 07743 Jena. At the old jetty in the paradise park. There are drinks for every taste. Open: In summer daily from 10 a.m. to midnight, closed in really bad weather.
Strandschleicher, Oberaue, 07745 Jena. Tel.: +49 3641 429231. Beach bar and beach volleyball courts, pedal boats, pirate ship playground.

 

Night life

There is nightlife in Wagnergasse, among other places.
3 Rosenkeller, Johannisstrasse 13, 07743 Jena. Tel.: +49 3641 931190. The student club has existed since 1966. The Rosenkeller e.V. student club holds regular events there, program on the homepage.
4 Kassablanca, Felsenkellerstrasse 13A, 07745 Jena. Tel: +49 3641 282615. Regular concerts, workshops and more.

The cinema in the Schillerhof in Jena East is always recommended. It may be a bit out of the way, it convinces with a wonderful selection of films and the cozy cinema hall. So worlds away from the commercial focus of other facilities.

 

Hotels

Cheap
If you are studying abroad, you can contact the Studentenwerk Thüringen to look for an apartment. It has a wide variety of residential complexes on offer, the largest of which are in Lobeda-West. However, the demand is very high, so accommodation on the open market should always be considered. Erasmus students from abroad are given preferential treatment and can usually count on a place in a hall of residence. On the bulletin boards in the main university building, in the canteens and the InfoTake you will find a range of shared rooms and apartments. Since there are no vacancies in Jena, prices are relatively high and rooms in the center are hard to come by - "WG castings" with several dozen applicants are not uncommon.

For shorter stays, the following housing options can be classified as "cheap":

1 Alpha Hostel, Lassallestraße 8. Tel.: +49 3641 597897. Price: €15 to €25 p.p. and night.
2 Youth Guest House, Am Herrenberge 3.

Medium
3 Hotel Schwarzer Bär, Lutherplatz 2 (“Universität” tram/bus stop). Phone: +49 (0)3641 406-0, fax: (0)3641 406113, e-mail: hotel@schwarzer-baer-jena.de. The classic Jena hotel where Luther stayed on his escape from the Wartburg.
4 Hotel & Restaurant "Zur Noll", Oberlauengasse 19, 07743 Jena. Tel.: +49 3641 597710. 22 rooms with TV, minibar, direct dial telephone, bathroom with tub or shower. Hotel with restaurant in historic walls in the center. Price: Single room from €72.00, double room from €87.00 with breakfast.
5 Hotel Thüringer Hof, Westbahnhofstr. 8, 07745 Jena. Tel.: +49 (0)3641 29290, fax: +49 (0)3641 292999, e-mail: info@thueringerhof-jena.de.
6 Hotel Ziegenhainer Tal, Ziegenhainer Strasse 107, 07749 Jena. Phone: +49 (0)3641 395840, fax: +49 (0)3641 395842, e-mail: ziegenhain@jenaer-bier.de. Price: Single room from €50, double room from €70.
7 Gasthof Zur Schweiz, Quergasse 15, 07743 Jena. Tel.: +49 (0)3641 5205 0, fax: +49 (0)3641 5205 111, e-mail: info@zur-schweiz.de Price: single room from €53, double room from €76.

Upscale
8 Best Western Hotel Jena, Rudolstädter Straße 82 (tram terminus “Winzerla”). Tel.: +49 (0)3641-660, fax: (0)3641-661010, e-mail: info@hotel-jena.bestwestern.de.
9 Steigenberger Esplanade Jena, Carl-Zeiß-Platz 4 (tram stop "Ernst-Abbe-Platz", next to the Goethe Gallery). Tel.: +49 (0)3641 800-0, fax: (0)3641 800-150, e-mail: jena@steigberger.de. Accepted payment methods: American Express, Visa, Mastercard, EC card, traveler checks.

Camping
10 “Unter dem Jenzig” campsite, Am Erlkönig 3, 07749 Jena. Tel.: +49 3641 666688. You can look for a parking space yourself and register later. Price: adults 8.00 euros, young people (14-17 years) accompanied by adults 5.00 euros, children (3-13 years) 3.00 euros, includes 1 pitch for tent, car + caravan or mobile home and warm Shower.
AIRSTREAM HOTEL. Tel.: +49 173 3717473. Three individually furnished AIRSTREAM caravans from the USA are rented out for overnight stays or to travel on your own. Price: Price: €75 per night for 2 people, each additional person €15.

 

Learn

1 Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Fürstengraben 1, 07743 Jena, Germany .
2 Thuringian University and State Library, Bibliotheksplatz 2, 07743 Jena. Tel.: +49 (0)3641 940100 Open: Mon - Fri 9 a.m. - 10 p.m., Sat 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.
3 Ernst Abbe Library, Carl Zeiss Platz 15, 07743 Jena. Tel.: +49 (0)3641 49-8160, fax: +49 (0)3641 49-8163, e-mail: eab@jena.de. Public library in Jena. Open: Mon - Fri 10 a.m. - 7 p.m., Sat 10 a.m. - 1 p.m.

 

Security

Although xenophobia is quite widespread in Thuringia, it is currently not a problem in Jena, as in other student cities. Jena is one of the East German cities with the largest proportion of foreigners. The risk of xenophobic attacks can only increase if you take a tram at night.

State Police Inspectorate Jena, Am Anger 30, 07743 Jena. Phone: +49 (0)3641 81-0.

 

Health

Jena is the location of the only university clinic in Thuringia.

Hospitals
Jena University Hospital, Bachstrasse 18, 07743 Jena. Phone: +49 (0)3641 9-300, email: info@med.uni-jena.de

Pharmacies
Saale pharmacy, Spitzweidenweg 25, 07743 Jena. Phone: +49 (0)3641 44 2883, email: saaleapotheke@medipolis.de. Open: Mon - Fri 8 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Centrum Pharmacy, Goethestrasse 3, 07743 Jena. Phone: +49 (0)3641 4201-50, fax: +49 (0)3641 4201-49, e-mail: centrumapothekejena@web.de. Open: Mon – Sat 9.00 a.m. – 8.00 p.m.
Goethe Pharmacy, Weigelstrasse 7, 07743 Jena. Tel.: +49 (0)3641 454545. Open: Mon – Fri 8 a.m. – 7 p.m., Sat 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.

 

Practical hints

The Jungle Book, which is published in the winter semester, is a good way to find your way around in Jena. It is available in almost every bookshop and is particularly popular with students. In addition to a planner, it also contains useful addresses, sights, opening times and other useful tips.

The Jena tourist card is called JenaCard and is available from the tourist information for €8.90. The card, which is valid for 48 hours, allows free use of local public transport and discounts for many tourist attractions.

Tourist Information, Markt 16, 07743 Jena. Phone: +49 (0)3641 498050, fax: +49 (0)3641 498055, e-mail: tourist-info@jena.de. Open: Mon-Fri 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., Sat 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sun 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

VHF Frequencies:
MDR 1 Radio Thuringia - 88.2 MHz
MDR Info - 89.5MHz
Antenna Thuringia - 90.9 MHz
radio TOP 40 - 94.8MHz
MDR Jump - 101.9MHz
State wave Thuringia - 106.1 MHz
Hauptpost, Engelplatz 8 (south of the Goethe Gallery). Since March 2008, you can leave your parcels in a parcel box on the edge of the building outside of opening hours. If you are in Jena-Nord, you will find a post office at Dornburger Str. 163.

 

Geography

Geographical location

Jena is located in the middle Saale valley between limestone and red sandstone slopes that are partly covered by mixed forests (geological phenomena include the devil's holes and the student slide). On them, e.g. B. in the Leutra Valley, there are numerous, sometimes rare orchid species.

The largest extension is 14.7 kilometers from north to south and 12.2 kilometers from east to west.

 

Cities in the area

The following larger cities are in the vicinity of Jena: Weimar (approx. 19 km west), Apolda (approx. 12 km north), Rudolstadt (approx. 30 km south), Naumburg (Saale) (approx. 29 km north-east), Gera (approx. 35 km east), Erfurt (approx. 40 km west), Halle (Saale) (approx. 67 km northeast), Leipzig (approx. 72 km northeast), Chemnitz (approx. 96 km east) and Dresden (approx . 152 km east).

 

Neighboring communities

The following communities border the city of Jena. They are listed clockwise starting from the north:
in the Saale-Holzland district:
Administrative community Dornburg-Camburg with Lehesten (with Altengönna), Neuengönna (with Porstendorf), Golmsdorf (with Beutnitz), Jenalöbnitz and Großlöbichau
Administrative community Südliches Saaletal with Rabis, Fraitsch, Gröben (belong to Schlöben, the fulfilling municipality is Bad Klosterlausnitz), Laasdorf, Zöllnitz, Rutha, Rothenstein, Milda (with Dürrengleina and Zimmritz) and Bucha (with Pösen, Oßmaritz, Nennsdorf and Coppanz)

in the Weimarer Land district:
Administrative community Mellingen with Döbritschen and Großschwabhausen
City and rural community Bad Sulza (with Großromstedt, Kleinromstedt and Hermstedt)

 

City structure

The administration of the city of Jena is divided into 30 districts according to § 45 of the Thuringian municipal code. These districts were determined by the main statute of the city of Jena. These are mostly spatially separated areas or villages that were formerly independent communities. For each locality there is a local council elected by direct election at a citizens' meeting. The chairman is the also directly elected mayor of the district. The 30 districts of the city are listed in the list of districts of Jena.

In addition, the urban area of ​​Jena is divided into 41 statistical districts. These are: Ammerbach Ort, Beutenberg / Winzerlaer Straße, Burgau Ort, Closewitz, Cospeda, Drackendorf, Drackendorf / Lobeda-Ost, Göschwitz, Ilmnitz, Isserstedt, Jena-Nord, Jena-Süd, Jena-West, Jena-Zentrum, Jenaprießnitz, Krippendorf, Kunitz, Laasan, Lichtenhain Ort, Leutra, Lobeda-Altstadt, Lobeda-Ost, Lobeda-West, Löbstedt Ort, Lützeroda, Maua, Mühlenstraße, Münchenroda, Nord II, Remderoda, Ringwiese Flur Burgau, Vierzehnheiligen, Wenigenjena / Kernberge, Wenigenjena Ort, Wenigenjena / Schlegelsberg, Winzerla, Wogau, Wöllnitz, Ziegenhain Ort, Ziegenhainer Tal and Zwätze.

 

Mountains and heights

Due to the location of Jena in the valleys of the Saale and its tributaries, which cut into the surrounding plateau, numerous prominent peaks and mountain formations emerged, the heights of which are mostly over 300 m above sea level. NN lie. Once unforested and bare, these heights and slopes have been reforested over the past two centuries.

Other mountains in the area are west of the Saale - from north to south - the Plattenberg (345 m) on the Neuengönna district, the Jägerberg and the Windknollen (with Napoleon Stone, 363 m, both within the Jena city limits), the Cospoth (397 m ) on the districts of Jena and Bucha, the Spitzenberg (374 m) near Maua on the Rothenstein district and the Kuppe (438 m, Dürrengleina). To the east of the Saale, for example, are the (Große) Gleißberg (365 m, more rarely Gleisberg) in Golmsdorf, on which the Kunitzburg ruins stand, and the Eichberg south of the Roda confluence with the Saale in the Sulza district. There is another castle hill in the valley of the tracks.

The formation of the surface relief in the urban area, especially the valley slopes, is the result of a differentiated geological situation based on the geological conditions in the central Saale valley.

 

Climate

Jena is one of the climatically particularly favored areas of Germany. Due to this location, however, Jena is particularly affected by the effects of overheating of the earth's climate system in the context of climate change, which necessitates adaptation measures. The strong reflection of the sun's rays on the steep valley slopes and especially the heat storage of the shell limestone create an early and mild spring, hot summer, long and warm autumn and mild winter. With an average annual temperature of 9.3 ° C (1961–1990), Jena is one of the warmest places in Central Germany. On the plateaus 200 to 250 m higher and the areas bordering them in the east and south, the annual mean temperature is already 1 to 1.5 ° C lower. In addition, there is the sheltered location, because the course of the valley means that the winds are mostly deflected and weakened in a north-south direction. The low mountain ranges surrounding the Thuringian Basin shield the precipitation. The annual rainfall is only 570 to 680 liters per square meter, most of it falls in the summer months. Due to the warm microclimate, the region near Jena is also called Thuringian Tuscany or the Tuscany of the East.

 

Origin of the city name

The origin of the name Jena has always been a point of contention and has not yet been fully clarified. As early as 1858, Johann Karl Schauer rejected some derivations, including from the Hebrew ֶַַיַיִן jajin and ancient Greek οἶνος oínos for wine, the name Johannes in relation to St. John's Church, the Roman god Janus, the Slavic jiny (German different, different) for marked terrain changes and brittle country, as well as some attempts at German explanations such as the word yawn with reference to the snap-hans who opens his mouth (and yawns) when the hour strikes. Schauer himself (and later also the city historian Herbert Koch) sees the solution in Celtic, especially in the word gen, which stands for mouth and in a figurative sense for estuary, whereby the mouth-shaped form of Jena is referred to by the valley basin or, in the case of Koch, to a confluence two bodies of water, the Leutra-Bach together with the Saale. The main objection to this is that the Celts never lived in East Thuringia.

The recent discussion is primarily concerned with the question of whether the name Jani can be taken from the Slavic or from the German, since a settlement in the vicinity can be proven for both peoples. Ferdinand Mentz and Rudolf Fischer rejected a derivation from the Slavic form Jan from Johannes, mainly on the grounds that the Slavs were not yet Christianized (i.e. pagan) in the middle of the 9th century and therefore could not know the name, and they contracted Form Jan, on the other hand, did not exist before the 10th century. Furthermore, Fischer does not wish to identify any Proto-Slavic form to which Jani might refer. A Germanic-German origin of the name is therefore favored by many onomastics. The derivation of Old High German gang with the meanings of aisle, path or route is possible, or - more likely - from the agricultural and historical-vintner-speak expression "Jahn", which, in addition to forest strips and farmland, also means a part of a cultivated area or a vineyard section to be done in one go can designate. It remains questionable whether viticulture had already taken place at this time. Likewise, some authors are critical that the meaning of a stripe is not characteristic enough for a place name, and that viticulture in the area probably developed outside the city center, where it no longer had any influence on the formation of the name.

Hengst and Wiesinger, on the other hand, point out in 2016 that the use of the Middle High German jān was not limited to viticulture. Rather, different variants occur in a wide variety of dialects throughout the German-speaking world. This wide occurrence justifies the assumption that such a word *jān with the basic meaning row also existed in Old High German. Assuming the masculine i-declension, the plural is *jāni, which corresponds exactly to the form in the Hersfeld tithe register. Using a corresponding Indo-European root for walking, one can deduce a proto-Germanic word *jǣni- for walk, the occurring plural form in Ahd. *jāni can then be interpreted as transition or transit points (over the Saale). Bichlmeier takes up this work and shows that the proto-Germanic *i̯ǣni- may have originated from the Proto-Indo-European, highly archaic Vṛddhi derivation *i̯ḗh₂-ni, which then indicates a mistake with (through) passages or the entirety of everything that (Through) corridors has, can be closed. Thus, the area at the river passage would be meant here.

 

History

Middle Ages

A first mention of the city is from the period 830-850. In the Hersfeld tithe register, Liutdraha (the village of Leutra that grew up in today's Johannisvorstadt) appears next to Iani. For 1145 and 1182 the form gene is documented, for 1216 Iehene and for 1252 Iene. The ending in -a can be traced back to the middle of the 15th century. In Latin texts, Jena is called the Athens on the Saale (Athenae ad Salam).

After the death of Wilhelm IV, Count Palatine of the Rhine, in 1140, the Lords of Lobdeburg, who were proven to be the owners of Jena, raised the town to the status of a town around 1230, which was soon walled in, expanded its self-government under the council witnessed in 1275, in the 14. Century the mayor's office, 1365 brought the lower courts and 1429 the higher courts. When the Saale flooded on June 23, 1263, 35 of the approximately 1000 inhabitants died. The rapidly flourishing viticulture brought good profit to the citizenry. Around 1176 a "Hermann, lord of the upper house" in Lobdeburg ordered "the knights and citizens in Gene to pave a public road that went through a courtyard that the monastery of Heusdorf had acquired and that was located in the court of Jena". . In 1286 the Dominicans built their monastery, in 1301 the Cistercian monastery was built near the Michaeliskirche. The lords of Lobdeburg had the Jena mint built in the 12th century.

With the weakening of the Lobdeburgers, the Counts of Schwarzburg and the Wettins appeared. By 1331 the House of Wettin had full possession of the town. In 1332 they granted Jena the Gotha city charter. In 1414 the Carmelite monastery was built. After the death of Frederick the Strict (1381), his three sons Frederick the Quarrelsome (1370-1428), Wilhelm the Rich (1371-1425) and George (* 1380; † December 9, 1401 in Coburg) received the city of Jena in the year 1382 jointly, the two older granted the city the duty exemption. Frederick's three sons, Frederick the Gentle, Sigismund and William the Brave, also confirmed this administrative act. When the hereditary lands were divided on January 4, 1436, Jena fell to Sigismund, who, however, became a clergyman in the Mildenfurth monastery out of love for a nun from Lohma. Because of his behavior, however, he was arrested by his brother Wilhelm in Freyburg an der Unstrut and held prisoner for a while. With the death of Wilhelm III. Jena fell to his nephews Ernst and Albrecht on August 26, 1485. Just six weeks later, there was another division, in which the office of Jena (without Kunitz, Zwaetzen and Porstendorf) was awarded to Ernst for a payment of 50,000 fl. After his death in 1486, his sons Frederick the Wise and John the Steadfast inherited the Jena office, which they granted market rights on December 10, 1492.

Urban prosperity was expressed in the new buildings of the Michaeliskirche from 1380/1390 and the town hall at the end of the 14th century. From 1423 Jena belonged to the Electorate of Saxony (Electoral Saxony), since the Wettins received the electoral dignity after the Ascanians died out. The division of Electoral Saxony in the Leipzig division resulted in Jena belonging to the newly created Ernestine Electorate of Saxony from 1485. In addition to the already mentioned viticulture (a Turkish tax register from the year shows 70 percent of Jena's taxpayers as vineyard owners), the cultivation of woad, hops and the brewery made a significant contribution to the fact that Jena was one of the most prosperous cities in today's Thuringia at the end of the Middle Ages. Another source of the city's wealth was cloth making, but despite its economic boom, Jena was always in competition with neighboring Weimar, which developed into a Wettin main residence from the end of the 14th century. However, this gave Jena the advantage of being able to develop largely independently of the sovereign regiment. Against a payment of 3000 Rhenish guilders 1480 by Wilhelm III. jurisdiction was extended from the city to the city floor.

 

Early modern age

The Reformation began in 1523 with the radical theologian Martin Reinhardt, who was expelled after Martin Luther's intervention in 1524. In 1525 peasants and some of the townspeople destroyed the Carmelite monastery and devastated the Dominican monastery. In 1536, the Jews were expelled from Jena (as well as from other Thuringian cities) by an anti-Jewish mandate from the sovereign - triggered by the Reformation and its anti-Semitic orientation, which was reinforced by Martin Luther. Due to the defeat in the Schmalkaldic War of 1546/47, the Ernestine lost their electoral dignity and all possessions east of the Weißen Elster, e.g. the city of Wittenberg. The Ernestine Electorate of Saxony became the Duchy of Saxony under the rule of Johann Friedrich I the Magnanimous, who had been demoted to the rank of Duke. In 1548 he founded the high school in the Dominican monastery in Jena as a replacement for the lost University of Wittenberg, from which the University of Jena emerged in 1558.

Since 1566, the Schöppenstuhl, which was important for the administration of justice throughout Thuringia, and a court court were connected to this institution, which was decisive for the further development of the city.

Book printing, which had been in operation since the beginning of the 16th century, flourished in connection with the university and in the 17th century gave the city third place behind Leipzig and Wittenberg. Even after the division of the state in 1572, the university remained under the patronage of the entire Ernestine, while the city fell to the Duchy of Weimar. During the Thuringian flood at the end of May 1613, parts of the city were flooded.

From 1672 to 1690, Jena was the capital of the independent principality of Saxe-Jena, whose dukes lived in the castle mentioned in 1471 and expanded in 1662, and whose central authorities worked in part in the city until 1809. After the death of the Duke of Saxe-Jena came the office and the city along with the palace, palace garden, government building, prince's cellar and hunter's house along with Burgau and Lobeda, as well as the Allstedt office, the Zillbach, the Remda estate, the Schwabsdorf outwork, Döbritschen and others Income on July 12, 1691 to the Ernestine line of Saxe-Eisenach and in 1741 to Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, with whom it remained until 1920.

In the theological doctrinal disputes of the late 16th century, the university was the center of Lutheran orthodoxy (Matthias Flacius), after the Thirty Years' War it experienced a heyday and, with 1800 students between 1706 and 1720, was at the top of all German universities. The baroque period expressed itself in magnificent civil buildings. Suggestions for the cultivation of art and music emanated from the ducal court. In 1570 the Collegium Musicum began to function, which, after the reorganization that took place in 1769, organized the academic concerts from 1770 to the 20th century.

In the 18th century, the decline in viticulture, student numbers and book printing caused the city's economy to decline. In 1788 the city's finances were put under compulsory administration. Under the government of Duke Carl August from 1775 to 1828 and his minister Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the new spirit of Weimar also had an impact on Jena and brought about a second heyday for the university. Goethe devoted his official and personal interest to her. In 1794 he became friends with Friedrich Schiller, who had been a professor since 1789 and lived in Jena until 1799.

1794 Johann Gottlieb Fichte and 1798 Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling were appointed, 1801/07 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel taught here, so that Jena became a main place of German idealistic philosophy, where the literary direction of the older romanticism with August Wilhelm Schlegel, his wife Caroline Schlegel, Friedrich Schlegel, Ludwig Tieck, Clemens Brentano and Friedrich von Hardenberg found an excellent nursing home. The Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, published in Jena from 1785 to 1803, increased the city's reputation. The university had a reputation for being particularly liberal, but its reputation quickly fell after 1800 as a result of the departure of famous teachers (Fichte was dismissed in 1799).

 

19th century

On October 14, 1806, Napoleon fought victoriously against the Prussian and Saxon armies at the Battle of Jena and Auerstedt. This double battle on the heights northwest of Jena and around Auerstedt caused severe damage to the city and its university. There was strong resistance to Napoleon's rule in Jena, especially among the students, who in 1813 joined the Lützow Freikorps in droves.

In 1815 the Urburschenschaft was founded in Jena, which used the colors black, red and gold as a sign of the desired unity of a democratized German Confederation. The freedom of the press in the Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach favored the struggle for national unity. The Wartburg Festival in 1817 was essentially initiated by the University of Jena and aroused the suspicion of conservative German governments, for whom the assassination of August von Kotzebue by the Jena theology student Karl Ludwig Sand in 1819 offered a welcome reason for increased reprisals. The University of Jena felt this in the form of a curator appointed in 1819 by restricting freedom of the press and dissolving the fraternity.

In modern times, the university is the main economic basis. In addition, field, wine, garden and hop cultivation and book printing brought profit. After 1800, smaller commercial businesses emerged, a worsted yarn spinning mill built in 1820 was the only company with more than 100 employees in 1840. In 1864 she introduced the steam engine. In 1830 Jena had 5491 inhabitants. With the construction of the Saalbahn from Großheringen to Saalfeld in 1874 and the Gera-Weimar line in 1876, the city became a transport hub. A pianoforte factory was built in 1843, an oven factory in 1859, a cement factory in 1886 and a measuring tool factory in 1895.

The optical workshop founded by Carl Zeiss in 1846, which had only 20 employees in 1860, gave rise to the precision mechanics and optics company, which had been working in its own factory buildings since 1880 and which was to make the Carl Zeiss brand famous worldwide and for its Rise experienced a significant impulse through the cooperation with the glass works of Otto Schott, which had been on the rise since 1884. In 1886 the 10,000th microscope was made, which was given to the bacteriologist Robert Koch as a gift. The profits from the Carl Zeiss Foundation, established in 1889, benefited the university to a large extent, which at that time had one of its most famous teachers in the zoologist Ernst Haeckel. In 1908 she moved into her new main building, which was built on the site of the former palace.

A state post office at Löbdergraben was built in 1858 and occupied in 1862. Telegraph operations and local telephone traffic were then moved to the post office in 1876 and 1893 respectively.

Between 1800 and 1880 the university was designed for around 500 students. The number of students rose to 2000 by 1914. The scientific and medical institutes in particular were expanded. The publishers Gustav Fischer (1878) and Eugen Diederichs (1896) enriched intellectual life. In 1879, the Higher Regional Court for all Thuringian states began its business as the successor to the Higher Appeals Court established in 1817 (new building 1880).

 

1900 to 1945

On March 19, 1901, the municipal power station was opened and on April 1, 1901, Jena's electric tram was officially commissioned. With the unification of the Thuringian states in 1920, Jena became part of the state of Thuringia, and the city became independent in 1922. At the same time, the district of Stadtroda, to which the surrounding area belonged, was created. The workers' parties SPD and KPD were very popular among the workforce of the large Zeiss and Schott factories, so that during the Weimar Republic the conservative parties and the NSDAP achieved the worst election results in Thuringia. As a result, later resistance to the National Socialists was also considerable.

With the transfer of power from the chancellorship to Adolf Hitler, discrimination and persecution of all political and humanist forces began in the city. Many received prison and penitentiary sentences or were taken as "protective prisoners" to the first concentration camp Nohra, its successor concentration camp Bad Sulza and later to the concentration camp Buchenwald. After the civil service law, numerous unpopular scientists were expelled from their posts. The university mutated more and more into an ideology producer of racism (chair for social anthropology) and anti-Semitism (collaboration with the church institute for research and elimination of Jewish influence on German church life).

From April 1, 1933, Jewish shops and institutions were boycotted. In October 1938, ten Jewish people without citizenship were deported to Poland as part of the “Poland Action”. During the November pogroms of 1938 there were anti-Jewish riots in the city. In the years that followed, numerous Jewish families and individuals were able to emigrate abroad. Between 1942 and 1945, the remaining Jews were deported from the Westbahnhof to the ghettos and extermination camps in the East and murdered. The memorial book of the Federal Archives for the victims of the Nazi persecution of the Jews in Germany (1933-1945) lists the names of 73 Jewish residents of Jena who were deported and mostly murdered. A number of Jews, including Clara Rosenthal, took their own lives.

The law for the prevention of offspring with hereditary diseases made it possible to carry out numerous forced sterilizations in the surgical clinic and the women's clinic. Later, patients were delivered to euthanasia centers. Thousands of forced laborers were employed in the Jena armaments factories. Shortly before the end of the war, a sabotage group undertook a bomb attack on the NSDAP office. From September 1944, up to 1,000 prisoners had to do forced labor in the adjacent Reichsbahnausbesserungswerk (RAW) in the subcamp "RAW Jena", a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp.

During the Second World War, Allied bombing raids, particularly in February and March 1945, caused extensive destruction. The heaviest bombardment took place on March 19, 1945. The US Army Air Forces dropped a total of 870 tons of bombs on Jena during their attacks. The bombing caused heavy damage and total destruction, a large part of the city center was destroyed; the ruins of the partly historic town houses were later removed. The house on the market square where Goethe and Schiller had formed their bond of friendship, the Griesbachsche and Bachsteinsche house, the city museum and the historic castle cellar were lost. The town church of St. Michael suffered severe damage. The college or university church was destroyed and the ruins removed in 1956. Its tower as well as the Collegien buildings were damaged. The town hall was partially destroyed, the court and council pharmacy as well as the university library were destroyed and later removed. The Abbeanum suffered severe damage and was rebuilt by 1951. The university library and six university institutes were completely destroyed, and several clinics on Bachstrasse were partially destroyed. 709 people lost their lives and 2000 were seriously injured.

When the city was shelled by US artillery on April 11, 1945, 40 people died. On April 13, 1945, US troops occupied the city without a fight. By the end of the war, large parts of the city had been destroyed. 1,424 apartments and 140 business and department stores were destroyed, 4,743 apartments were badly damaged. After Nordhausen, Jena was the most destroyed city in Thuringia.

On July 1, 1945, units of the Red Army moved into the city and Jena became part of the Soviet occupation zone.

 

Development from 1945

In the course of the onset of reconstruction, the University of Jena was the first German university to resume teaching on October 15, 1945. In 1946, 94 percent of the Zeiss and Schott companies were dismantled and more than 300 specialists from both plants were brought to the USSR to rebuild the plants there. The large pharmaceutical company Jenapharm was founded in 1950. During the GDR era, the city belonged to the Gera district from 1952 to 1990.

During the popular uprising of June 17, 1953, around 30,000 citizens of the city went on strike and protested against measures taken by the GDR government. The demonstrators called for free elections, German unity and the resignation of the government. The buildings of the SED district leadership, the prison at the Steiger (with the liberation of 61 prisoners), the houses of the mass organizations and the district office of the MfS were stormed. Soviet tanks arrived in the city to quell the protests. A state of emergency was declared and several hundred people were arrested. On June 18, 1953, the locksmith Alfred Diener, who was born in Jena in 1927, was executed in the building of the Soviet headquarters in Weimar. He and two delegates from the coal workers presented the demonstrators' demands in the office of the first secretary of the SED district leadership. Other participants in the popular uprising received prison sentences of several years.

In 1957 prefabricated buildings were introduced in Jena. Between 1965 and 1975 the Jena-Lobeda-West development area was built. When the city center was redesigned in 1968, the historic city center around Eichplatz was demolished and the fraternity oak planted in 1816 felled. The university skyscraper, which dominates the cityscape, was built on the edge of the cleared square. In the same year, the Jenaer Madrigalkreis, chamber choir of the Jena Philharmonic, was founded. In 1969 the Jena Symphony Orchestra was given the name Jena Philharmonic. Between 1971 and 1983 the Jena-Lobeda-Ost development area was built.

In 1975, the city's population exceeded the 100,000 mark, making Jena the 14th major city in the GDR. The residential area on the Rähmen was completed in 1986.

From the 1970s, several working groups made the city a center of the GDR opposition. In the 1980s, the Weißer Kreis group was formed with the aim of jointly submitting numerous exit applications.

During the turnaround in the GDR on November 4, 1989, Jena experienced the largest demonstration in the city's history with around 40,000 participants at a citizens' forum on the square of the cosmonauts, after the number of demonstrators had increased by leaps and bounds from week to week. Until 1991, Jena was the location of the 79th Armored Division of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany. On the occasion of the reconciliation of interests with the Soviet Union from 1990 and the dissolution of the Red Army in 1991, the last, mostly Russian, soldiers left Jena on March 24, 1992. After the district reform on July 1, 1994, the district of Jena became part of the new timber district, which has been called the Saale-Holzland district since September 14, 1994.

In the post-reunification period, especially between 1995 and 1997, several crimes with a right-wing extremist background occurred in Jena. In November 2011 it turned out that some members of the neo-Nazi scene in Jena had been terrorists as the National Socialist Underground (NSU) since the turn of the millennium. In a video, they confessed to a series of murders and bomb attacks carried out across Germany, which almost always had racist motives.

On September 19, 2020, a square in Jena-Winzerla was named after NSU murder victim Enver Şimşek. With the timetable change for Jena local transport on December 15, 2021, the Damaschkeweg stop was also renamed Enver-Şimşek-Platz.

 

Incorporations

Since 1909, numerous communities and districts have been incorporated into Jena. In 1900, the urban area covered an area of 1,323.2 hectares. Since the last incorporations in 1994 based on Section 23 of the Reorganization Act in Thuringia, 11,421.6 hectares have belonged to the city of Jena. All incorporated places were previously independent communities and had (apart from Isserstedt) previously included one or more neighboring communities (Cospeda the communities of Lützeroda and Closewitz, Drackendorf the community of Ilmnitz, Krippendorf the community of Vierzehnheiligen, Kunitz the community of Laasan, Münchenroda the community of Remderoda, Maua the community Leutra and Jenapriessnitz the community Wogau).

 

Deserted areas

In addition to today's districts, there were a large number of places in today's urban area of Jena that no longer exist, so-called deserted areas. These were Proschitz and Kötschen near Zwaetzen, Krolip, Schondorf and Ziskau near Closewitz, Rödel and Schichmannsdorf in Mühltal, Krotendorf, Schetzelsdorf, Nollendorf as the old northern suburb, Hodelsdorf/auf dem Sande as the eastern suburb, Zweifelbach as the old southern and Leutra as the old western Suburb, Nobis in the Jena Forest, Wüstenwinzerla, Dürrengleina on the Kospoth, Niederleutra near Leutra, Hirschdorf, Selzdorf near Lobeda, Clöchwitz, Büsitz, Schlendorf am Hausberg, Benndorf, Wenigenkunitz near Kunitz, Gaberwitz and Kalthausen near Kunitz.

 

Population development

In 1975 the population of the city of Jena exceeded 100,000, making it a major city. In 1988, the population reached its all-time high of 108,010. After the fall of communism in the GDR, the population of Jena fell until the end of the 1990s and since then - in contrast to many other cities in East Germany - it has been on the rise and is growing by around 1000 inhabitants every year, also because of the students who have their main residence register during your studies in Jena. On December 31, 2014, the official number of inhabitants for Jena was 108,207 according to the Thuringian State Office for Statistics (only main residences and after comparison with the other state offices) and has thus exceeded the historic high of 1988 for the first time (albeit with the 14 incorporations of July 1 1994).

 

Religions

According to the 2011 census, 15.4% of the residents were Protestant and 5.3% Roman Catholic, with 79.3% all people who belonged to another or no public religious community were summarized under "Other, none, unspecified". or about which no information was available. At the end of 2019, of the 108,940 inhabitants, 13.1% (14,276) were Protestant, 5.2% (5,715) Catholic, 81.7% (88,949) belonged to another religious community, were non-denominational or remained unspecified. At the end of 2020, of the 108,306 inhabitants, 12.9% (13,964) were Protestant, 5.1% (5,584) Catholic, 82% (88,758) belonged to another religious community, were non-denominational or remained unspecified.

 

Christianity

Jena is the seat of a superintendent of the Evangelical Church in Central Germany within the supervisory district east, whose district church office is in Gera. The existing Evangelical-Lutheran parishes in Jena all belong to the Jena Superintendency. The Roman Catholic parish also looks after believers outside of Jena, as well as in Camburg, Apolda and Bad Sulza. With around 7,300 members, it is one of the largest parishes in the Diocese of Erfurt and, according to the 2011 census, one of the largest diaspora communities in East Germany. Free churches include the Adventist Church, the Evangelical Free Church (Baptists), the United Methodist Church, the Independent Evangelical Lutheran Church (SELK) and the Christian Church in Lobeda (Brotherhood).

 

Other religions

Jews are first mentioned in Jena in 1379. In the late Middle Ages, a number of Jewish families lived here. In the 16th century, Jews with sovereign mandates were expelled and were not allowed to settle again until 1825. In the course of the 19th century prayer rooms were set up in private houses. During the National Socialist era, the last deportations to the Theresienstadt concentration camp took place at the end of January 1945. Today's Jewish community has around 150 members and was formed after the collapse of the Soviet Union through the influx of Russian and Ukrainian Jews. The community is not yet recognized as independent and is therefore looked after by the Erfurt community. It has a small community center but no synagogue.

The Muslims living in Jena, whose number is estimated at around 500 (as of Jan. 2015), meet in two Islamic centers.

 

History of religion

Before the Christianization of the area around Jena, the Thuringians lived here in the 3rd to 6th centuries, a tribal association whose history little is known. Due to the many contacts with Rome and the Ostrogothic kingdom, the first influences of Christianity came early on. The Thuringians themselves initially worshiped Germanic or local gods. Until the 8th century, this belief prevailed in the area on which Jena later developed. In the 7th century, there were also Slavic settlers with their religious ideas. Jena, which later lay in the border area between these settlement areas, may have been above all a place where Christian and various pagan beliefs met. Only with the mission of Bonifatius did Christianity gradually spread to this area, starting from the sphere of influence of Fulda. A consolidation of the Christian faith did not take place until the 10th century.

From 742, the population of the area around Jena belonged to the specially created diocese of Erfurt, which, however, did not last long and was added to the diocese of Mainz in 755. The existence of other, already established Christian church structures on the Saale is shown by the fact that the old original parishes continued to maintain a number of parish rights beyond the newly created diocese boundaries (e.g. Lobeda, Wenigenjena). The city was assigned directly to the Deanery of Oberweimar within the Archdeaconate Beatae Mariae virginis in Erfurt. The area to the right of the Saale, which was incorporated in 1909, belonged to the diocese of Naumburg, although Jena also held parish rights in Wenigenjena and Camsdorf in the Middle Ages. A clergyman in Jena is mentioned for the first time in 1252. In 1523 the first Reformation sermon was held in Jena. There were serious arguments between the individual directions of the Reformation movement (Lutherans, Flacians, etc.). The Reformation quickly took hold and Jena became a center of Lutheranism as a new faith. In January 1536, three Anabaptists were executed on the Jena land fortress, among them the Kleineutersdorfer miller Hans Peißker.

Jena was a predominantly Protestant city for a long time. The Lutheran confession was dominant; Martin Luther personally stayed in Jena several times. Instead of the Pope, the sovereign had taken over the leadership of the so-called Evangelical Lutheran Church. The church thus shared the fortunes of the respective sovereigns. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Grand Duchy of Saxony, to which Jena belonged since 1741 (at that time still the Duchy of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach), merged with the other regional churches in Thuringia after 1920 to form the Thuringian Evangelical Church. In 1948 it renamed itself the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Thuringia.

Since the 19th century at the latest, citizens with a Catholic confession have been moving to the city again. The Catholic parish church of St. Johannes Baptist is Jena's oldest church. Its history goes back to the 10th century. Before the Reformation it was the parish church of the town. After that it functioned as a cemetery chapel and was often left to decay.

After the Battle of Jena and Auerstedt, Napoleon gave the church ruins to the small Catholic community in the city, which had gathered around a French émigré, the priest Gabriel Henry.

In 1813 the parish was dissolved and from 1817 pastoral care was linked to the Weimar parish. From 1821 the Catholic parish of Jena belonged to the Archdiocese of Paderborn. Only in 1905 was a canonical parish established. Fundamental conversions and extensions from this time testify to the requirements of lively community life. The church ruins were expanded into today's parish church, with a nave being pulled to the west and the altar being moved to a new apse in the west. With the Prussian Concordat of 1929, the community in Jena came under the diocese of Fulda.

After the Second World War, more and more Catholics came to Jena as a result of expulsion and persecution, their total number rose to 14,000. The limited capacity of the parish church prevented many Catholics from attending services, despite eight Sunday services and outposts in the surrounding villages. Therefore, in 1957-1959, the altar was removed from the apse in the west, placed in what was then the entrance area in the east, and a gallery was built in the former apse. The apse can be recognized by its chancel windows. At that time, the community in Jena was administered by a Vicar General based in Erfurt. In 1973 the Erfurt-Meiningen Episcopal Office was set up and the Erfurt Diocese was reestablished in 1994, to which the parish belongs.

The parish of St. Johannes Baptist, newly founded on January 1, 2017, is not only responsible for the city of Jena and all the surrounding towns up to Dornburg in the north, Bürgel in the east, Rothenstein in the south and Großschwabhausen in the west, but also includes the church towns of Apolda, Bad Sulza and Camburg each with a Catholic church. Since some of the eastern districts (Drackendorf) that were later incorporated belong to the area of the Dresden-Meißen diocese, the pastor of the Jena parish is also the chaplain of the neighboring Stadtroda parish in order to be able to officially provide pastoral care to the Catholics who live beyond the diocese border.

 

Politics

The administration of the city of Jena was initially the responsibility of the officials of the Lobdeburg rulers. But soon there was also a council at the head of the city, which was headed by two councilors from 1317. From the 14th century the council was divided into three. In 1540, the Elector of Saxony introduced a new town ordinance. There were several mayors, but from 1604 there was only one mayor at the head of the city. Since 1892 the head of the city has held the title of Lord Mayor. The first was Gottlob Heinrich Singer. The council was elected by the people.

From 1933 the Lord Mayor was appointed by the NSDAP. In the GDR, the city council was “elected” via the National Front’s single list, which in turn elected the city council headed by a mayor.

After the peaceful revolution in the GDR, free elections were held for the first time in the city council, on May 6, 1990 they elected Peter Röhlinger (FDP) as mayor. When Thuringia's municipal code came into effect in 1994, the city council was replaced by the city council, headed by a city council chairman. Also since 1994, the mayor has been elected directly by the people. Thomas Nitzsche (FDP) currently holds this office. He is assisted by three department heads elected by the city council. Eberhard Hertzsch (independent; family, education and social affairs), Benjamin Koppe (CDU; finance, security and citizen service) and Christian Gerlitz (SPD; urban development and environment, at the same time mayor and thus deputy mayor) are in office.

The Jena City Council cooperates with the Jena Youth Parliament, which was elected by all students from grade 5 and founded in 2012, on issues relevant to young people.

Municipal debt is falling and amounted to around 69.9 million euros at the end of 2012.

 

Economy and Infrastructure

Jena is one of the three regional centers in Thuringia. More workers commute to Jena than commute from Jena. Alongside the cities of Erfurt and Ilmenau, Jena is part of the Thuringian technology triangle. In the Future Atlas 2022, the independent city of Jena took 24th place out of 400 districts and independent cities in Germany and is therefore one of the places with "very good future prospects".

Jena is a member of the metropolitan region of central Germany.

 

Metrics

In 2016, Jena, within the city limits, generated a gross domestic product (GDP) of 4.464 billion euros, ranking 69th in the ranking of German cities by economic output. In the same year, the per capita gross domestic product was 40,609 euros (Thuringia: 27,674 euros/ Germany 38,180 euros) and thus above the regional and national average. About 60 percent was generated with services, another 30 percent was accounted for by the manufacturing industry. In 2013 there were a total of 4255 companies, 28 of which had more than 250 employees.

The turnover of companies in the processing industry with 50 or more employees was 1.41 billion euros in 2014. The export ratio of companies in the processing industry with 50 or more employees was 59.9 percent (2014), making it the highest in Thuringia.

As of June 30, 2017, there were 55,192 jobs subject to social security contributions in Jena and 40,810 residents of the city were employed subject to social security contributions. This results in a commuter surplus of 14,382 people, which puts the city in second place after Erfurt in Thuringia. There were 25,610 inbound commuters compared to 11,267 outbound commuters, with 14,155 from the neighboring districts of Saale-Holzland-Kreis, Weimarer Land and Weimar, 6,673 from the neighboring districts as well as Gotha and Altenburger Land and 4,782 employees subject to social security contributions from more distant regions working in Jena. In contrast, 4,391 people from Jena had their jobs in the neighboring districts, 3,265 in the second ring and 3,611 in more distant regions. The labor market situation has improved as a result of the upswing since around 2005, so that the average unemployment rate for 2017 was 6.1 percent.

In hotels and other accommodation there were a total of 313,100 overnight stays in 2014. The average length of stay was just under two days.

 

Economic history and resident companies

The glass and optics industry has been based in Jena since the 19th century. The relevant companies are known worldwide for inventions that revolutionized the microscope and the development of the planetarium. After the Second World War, the companies Carl Zeiss Jena GmbH and SCHOTT JENAer GLAS GmbH were re-established in West Germany by scientists and employees who had emigrated. By July 1945, the American occupiers deported much of the know-how in the form of scientists and records to their zone of occupation. After that, under the Soviet occupation, the industry was dismantled and deported to the Soviet Union. Initially, the people of Jena rebuilt the municipal industry themselves, until the Soviet occupiers in the newly founded GDR also supported the reconstruction in order to strengthen it in relation to the Federal Republic of Germany. Later, the combine VEB Carl Zeiss Jena was established. The Schottwerke were also converted into a combine. In addition, in the GDR era, Jenapharm, a pharmaceutical company, emerged from the bacteriological laboratory of the Schott glass works, which was founded in the 1940s. The glass fiber division was later spun off from the glass factory and was majority-owned by Leoni AG in January 2007.

After reunification, the state-owned large combine Carl Zeiss, in which almost all optical companies in the GDR were combined, was privatized. Carl Zeiss Oberkochen assumed responsibility for the core optical business. A renovator was sought for the majority of the Jena works and found in Lothar Späth. Carl Zeiss Jena GmbH was established in Jena as a subsidiary of Zeiss Oberkochen and Jenoptik GmbH as the legal successor to the former combine headed by Späth. In 1998, Jenoptik took the risk of going public as a stock corporation.

Four listed companies have their headquarters in Jena: Jenoptik AG, Carl Zeiss Meditec AG, Intershop AG and DEWB AG. Analytik Jena withdrew from the stock exchange in 2015.

After the reunification, the combine VEB Jenapharm looked for a buyer and found him in Gehe AG. Operations were later taken over by Schering AG. The company has established itself as the market leader in the field of oral contraceptives in Germany and is now part of Bayer Pharma AG. A whole series of pharmaceutical institutes and companies have settled in the area.

Wacker Chemie AG and Schott Solar founded a joint venture that started operations on April 16, 2008 to manufacture silicon wafers for the solar industry. After Wacker's withdrawal at the end of September 2009, SCHOTT Solar employed around 350 people at the site. At the end of March 2012, wafer production in Jena was discontinued.

Numerous biotechnology companies were founded as part of the BioRegio initiative with the “bioinstruments” concept. Companies in this sector that have their headquarters in Jena are Analytik Jena and CyBio. Biolitec has relocated its headquarters to Vienna. Since the takeover of Clondiag in 2006, the medical technology group Alere has had a presence in the city. WACKER Biotech GmbH produces therapeutic proteins using biotechnological processes. It was founded in 1999 under the name ProThera GmbH as an offshoot of the Hans Knöll Institute in Jena and has been a full subsidiary of Wacker Chemie AG since 2005.

Deutsche Effecten- und Wechsel-Beteiligungsgesellschaft AG (DEWB for short), a former subsidiary of Jenoptik AG that specializes in the financing and development of young companies in the field of optical technologies and sensor technology, has its headquarters in Jena. Sparkasse Jena-Saale-Holzland is the largest financial company based in the city.

Jena is considered one of the centers in the field of electronic commerce in Germany. Intershop has been one of the pioneers in the development of online shops since the mid-1990s. However, after the dot-com bubble burst, the company lost significant value. In addition to Internet agencies, other companies such as T-Systems Multimedia Solutions, ESET and Demandware are represented in the city.

In the field of security technology, the US American Cross-Match Technologies group has had a branch in Jena since the takeover of the British Smiths Heimann Biometrics Group (SHB) in August 2005. In addition, Jena is an important location for the armaments industry, which has established itself primarily in the field of optical companies. Carl Zeiss Jena was already active in this area before 1990. Zeiss produces sights and other military equipment.

Jena-Optronik, an EADS/Astrium subsidiary that belonged to Jenoptik until 2010, develops sensors for satellites and probes as well as instruments for earth observation and space exploration.

Several municipal companies are located under the umbrella of the Holding Stadtwerke Jena GmbH. Stadtwerke Energie Jena-Pößneck GmbH provides electricity, gas and district heating as well as other services. Jenaer Nahverkehr GmbH operates tram and bus services within the city. Several pools are operated by Jenaer Bäder und Freizeit GmbH. The largest housing provider in Jena and Blankenhain with around 14,000 residential units, Jenawohnen GmbH (formerly SWV GmbH), also belongs to the association.

With around 6,200 apartments, the Carl Zeiss e. G. the second largest landlord in Jena and the surrounding area.

 

Resident Industry Networks

InfectoGnostics Research Campus Jena e. V. (infection diagnostics, point-of-care technologies)
medways e. V. (medical technology, bioanalytics, laboratory equipment technology)
MNT Micro-Nano-Thuringia e. V. (until March 15, 2022)
OptoNet Jena e. V. (Optics and Photonics)
Precision from Jena (working group of the BVMW)
SpectroNet (image processing)
TowerByte eG (software and e-commerce)
Region Erfurt-Weimar-Jena "The ImPulse Region"
The cities of Jena, Weimar and Erfurt, which are lined up next to each other in the "Thuringian chain of cities", have been working together in selected areas, despite all the competition, since the preparations for the "Weimar 99" city of culture year. A striking result of this cooperation is the network tariff for using (almost all) buses, trams and DB trains in the region with just one ticket. The cooperation was extended in 2005 with a new ImPuls regional concept to areas beyond tourism and local transport. The overall regional goals include above all economic cooperation under the brand “Erfurt-Weimar-Jena Die ImPuls-Region”, which also includes the district of Weimarer Land in addition to the cities mentioned.

 

Traffic

The “Guidelines for Mobility in Jena 2030” were adopted by the city council on February 14, 2018. They form the basis for further traffic development planning in Jena up to 2030.

 

Rail transport

Jena has three railway stations and two breakpoints in the city and is a railway junction. This is where the Saalbahn and the Weimar-Gera railway line, "Central Germany connection", cross.

All east-west trains run via Jena-Göschwitz station and Jena West station. The north-south connections run via the Jena-Zwaetzen station, the Saal station, the Jena Paradies station and also the Jena-Göschwitz station, where the two railway lines meet. A main station was planned in the area between Göschwitz and the Ringwiese in the 1970s and 1980s, but it never got beyond the planning stage.

The Saalbahnhof was used as Jena's long-distance stop until 2001, before it was replaced by Jena Paradies as such. On June 12, 2005, a new, modern reception building was opened there, replacing the temporary wooden platforms used during the conversion. Jena Paradies was approached hourly by ICE on the route from Berlin via Leipzig and Nuremberg to Munich. Since the completion of the new Leipzig/Halle–Erfurt and Erfurt–Nuremberg lines in December 2017, these trains have been routed via Erfurt and therefore no longer via Saalfeld and Jena.

Weimar, Erfurt, Göttingen, Gera, Glauchau, Rudolstadt, Saalfeld (Saale), Lichtenfels, Pößneck, Blankenstein, Großheringen, Naumburg (Saale), as well as Bamberg and Nuremberg with a regional express, can be reached directly in regional transport.

 

Road, bicycle and pedestrian traffic

The Bundesautobahn 4 (Frankfurt am Main –) Erfurt – Chemnitz – Dresden – Görlitz runs through the southern city area in a west-east direction. The city can be reached via the Jena-Göschwitz and Jena-Zentrum junctions. Furthermore, the B7 and the B88 lead through Jena.

For 2009, the police recorded 2,779 road accidents, 362 of which resulted in personal injury. The total number of motor vehicles was 45,920, of which 40,782 were passenger cars.

Two long-distance cycle routes cross in Jena – the Saale cycle route and the Thuringian chain of towns long-distance cycle route. Both are part of the so-called Radnetz Deutschland of 12 long-distance cycle paths that are identified in the Federal Government's National Cycle Traffic Plan 2002-2012. The Saale Cycle Path is part of the Baltic Sea-Upper Bavaria Route. The long-distance cycle route in Thuringia is part of the Mittelland route, which runs from Aachen (coming from Western Europe) to Zittau (and on to Eastern Europe). The Thuringian Mill Cycle Path and the Jena – Thalbürgel Church Cycle Path also pass through Jena.

The proportion of bicycle traffic in the total traffic volume in the city (modal split) is 9 percent and is expected to reach 15 percent in the next few years. According to the results of the "System of Representative Traffic Surveys" (SrV) from 2009 and 2013, Jena holds a top position in Germany in terms of pedestrian traffic (38 percent) with an upward trend since 2003, while motorized private transport (MIV) in the modal split has fallen to 34 percent is.

 

Transportation

The Apolda-Jena bus line, which began regular service on September 5, 1909, is the oldest regular motor transport connection between two Thuringian cities. Public transport is provided by tram and bus lines operated by Jenaer Nahverkehr GmbH (JeNah). In addition to the late-night traffic on most of these lines, night traffic is offered on a tram line every 30 or 40 minutes on all weekdays between around midnight and 4 a.m. Some towns can only be reached with the regional bus lines of JES Verkehrsgesellschaft mbH, Personenverkehrsgesellschaft mbH Apolda (PVG) or Omnibusverkehr Saale-Orla-Rudolstadt GmbH (OVS), but this is often only possible Monday to Friday or on school days in the morning and afternoon is. At the end of the 1960s, the construction of an Alwegbahn was planned, for which technology would have had to be imported from Germany. The construction had to be rejected in 1971 because of the directive "Non-interference from the West". The current public transport plans are included in the 2002 transport development plan of the city of Jena and in the local transport plan of the city of Jena 2008-2012. The number of commuters from the surrounding area to Jena has increased in recent years, between 2007 and 2017 by almost 6,000 people (+30.3%) daily. Around 46 percent of employees who are subject to social security contributions in Jena are commuters (+ 19.1 %), a challenge for public transport. In June 2018, around 26,100 people commuted to work in Jena, with around 57,000 employees subject to social security contributions; 11,284 people commuted from Jena to the surrounding area.

 

Shipping

Due to several barrages, the Saale near Jena is no longer navigable. There used to be a mooring point for smaller transport ships here and the wood from the Thuringian woodland was floated through Jena.

 

Air traffic

To the east of the city is the Jena-Schöngleina airfield, which is used exclusively for general aviation. The airfield has a 1170 m asphalt runway and a transverse 610 m grass runway. The nearest landing sites with scheduled services are Leipzig/Halle, Erfurt-Weimar and Nuremberg.

 

Media

In Jena there are local editorial offices for the daily newspapers Ostthüringer Zeitung (OTZ, which emerged from the central organ of the SED in the district of Gera (“Volkswacht”)) and the Thüringische Landeszeitung (TLZ), which has a lower circulation. Both belong to the Thuringia Media Group (Funke Media Group Essen). The advertising-financed advertising journal Allgemeine Anzeiger is published on a weekly basis and has its own editorial office in Jena. In addition, the student newspapers Akrützel, Die Wurzel and Unique are published at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, the Ernst Abbe University of Applied Sciences in Jena and in some grammar schools. The city magazine 07 has been published since August 2008. The city magazine for Jena and the region. There is also the television station JenaTV, which has been feeding video news in and from Jena into the local cable network since 1998. The Offener Kanal Jena, a radio station, has been broadcasting on 103.4 MHz (VHF) and in cable on 107.90 MHz since 1998. Since 2003, the student radio of the university and FH, the Campusradio Jena, has been broadcasting as part of the open channel. There is also a city-wide radio program by students for Jena schools.

On the Internet, Jena local news is presented by OTZ.de, TLZ.de, jenanews.de (July 2007 to August 2012) and Jenaer Nachrichten (since autumn 2011). Daily news has been published on jenapolis.de (since spring 2009).

 

Public facilities

In Jena there is a branch of the German Patent and Trademark Office, whose headquarters are in Munich.

In addition to the Thuringian Higher Regional Court, which has been located in Jena again since 1993, the Thuringian Public Prosecutor's Office is based in the Jena Justice Center. The District Court of Jena is also located in the Justice Center. With effect from January 1, 2014, the formerly independent labor court in Jena was merged with the labor court in Gera.

 

Education and Research

With the Friedrich Schiller University, Jena is the only city in the Free State of Thuringia with a full university. In addition, the city on the Saale is home to another important national educational institution, the Ernst Abbe University Jena. Almost 21,000 students are being trained in Jena (as of winter semester 2020/2021). Several institutes and small optical technology and biotechnology companies that conduct basic research or develop medical instruments have settled in the vicinity of the university and technical college. Many academic institutes and start-up companies are located on the Beutenberg Campus.

Jena is part of the BioRegio network and operates a bioinstrument center to promote biotech companies. With the topic "Light of the Future", Jena is one of the ten German cities at the meeting place for science in the Science Year 2009.

For interested laypersons there is, among other things, the light workshop, an open workshop and a hacker space called Krautspace.

 

Research institutions

In 1942, in the bacteriological laboratory of Schott & Gen glassworks in Jena, Hans Knöll developed the first laboratory process for the production of penicillin on the European continent. In 1953, Hans Knöll founded the Institute for Microbiology and Experimental Therapy, from which the Hans Knöll Institute (HKI) emerged, which was later renamed the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology - Hans Knöll Institute (HKI).

Leibniz Institute for Research on Aging – Fritz Lipmann Institute (FLI)
Leibniz Institute for Photonic Technologies (IPHT; 1992-2007 Institute for Physical High Technology, 2007-2013 Institute for Photonic Technologies)
Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry
Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering (IOF)
Friedrich Loeffler Institutes:
Institute for Bacterial Infections and Zoonoses (IBIZ)
Institute for Molecular Pathogenesis (IMP)
Helmholtz Institute Jena (HI-Jena)
DLR Institute for Data Science (German Aerospace Center)

 

Research Focus

A total of around 4,500 scientists conduct research in Jena. With a focus on the areas of optics and photonics as well as health and the life sciences, research in Jena is oriented towards important future issues that are relevant to the further development of society and the economy. The profile line "LIGHT LIFE LIBERTY" of the Friedrich Schiller University and the slogan "where life sciences meets physics" of the Beutenberg Campus document the interdisciplinary research at the Jena location. The main research areas include Optics and photonics, infection research and sepsis, as well as innovative materials and surface technology.

 

Schools

Promotion of gifted students and reform pedagogy have a long tradition in Jena. Various approaches have been and are being pursued in relation to science and humanities schools.

The pedagogue Karl Volkmar Stoy worked there in the middle of the 19th century. In the summer of 1853 he walked through the countryside with all his students and thus invented the hiking day. The school he founded in 1844 was one of the first with an attached gymnasium. The vocational training center Karl-Volkmar-Stoy-School now bears his name. At the beginning of the 20th century, Hermann Pistor founded a technical school for ophthalmic optics; the educator Peter Petersen developed the Jena-Plan model at the university and in its own university school. The first German Montessori school was founded at Whitsun 1923 in the former elementary school in Wenigenjena. It existed until 1929 and was closed by the National Socialist-led state government of Thuringia.

The Carl-Zeiss secondary school focuses on mathematics and natural sciences. Since it was founded in 1963, special emphasis has been placed on the self-confident and comprehensive examination of these areas. The school drew attention to itself through successes at national and international level in natural science competitions such as the Mathematics Olympiad, the Federal Computer Science Competition or the International Chemistry Olympiad.

In addition to the Jenaplan school, which was resurrected in the Ziegenhainer valley immediately after reunification and was one of the winners of the German School Prize in 2006, there is also a Montessori school in Jena again. There is also a free Waldorf school in the south and a European school in the Alt-Lobeda district. The integrated comprehensive school "Grete Unrein" Jena was created in 1991 as a special model with the conversion of the Erich Weinert School at Leutra to an elementary school.

The Johann-Christoph-Friedrich-GutsMuths-Gymnasium focuses on sports. The Christliches Gymnasium Jena is under state church sponsorship. Another high school is the Ernst-Abbe-Gymnasium. The Realschule Ostschule and the Adolf-Reichwein-Gymnasium are currently being combined in the building of the grammar school to form a cooperative comprehensive school. The reason for this is the declining number of students. The Angergymnasium has been housed in the Ostschule building since November 2006. There is also the Otto-Schott-Gymnasium in Lobeda-West, which offers bilingual education.

 

Medical care and fire brigade

The Jena University Hospital is the only university hospital in Thuringia. There are 26 clinics and polyclinics with a total of 1375 beds in Lobeda, on Bachstraße and in the Landgrafengebiet. The clinic is a maximum care hospital and at the same time a teaching hospital for the University of Jena. In 2013, the outpatient rehabilitation center (ARZ) was opened in Jena. It belongs to the Gräfliche Kliniken Bad Driburg group of clinics and has specialized in the fields of neurology and orthopaedics. The in-house health and prevention center offers a wide range of offers in the areas of nutrition, exercise and relaxation. The resident practices for ergotherapy, physiotherapy and speech therapy complete the extensive health offer.

The Jena fire brigade is divided into a professional fire brigade with almost 120 employees and 15 volunteer fire brigades. Together, the active units handle around 2000 operations a year, of which around 15 percent are in the area of firefighting.

The Christoph 70 rescue helicopter, staffed by doctors from Jena University Hospital, is stationed at the nearby Jena-Schöngleina airfield. The integrated control center in Jena coordinates the intensive care transport helicopter Christoph Thüringen, which is stationed in Bad Berka.

 

Former garrison

Jena became a garrison town during the rearmament of the Wehrmacht in the 1930s. An infantry barracks and an artillery barracks in Löbstedt were built for the army in Zwätzen. Accommodation for anti-aircraft artillery was built in the Jena Forest; there is also a Luftwaffe air base in nearby Rödigen. The facilities in Zwätzen, Löbstedt and the Forst were occupied by the Soviet/Russian troops after 1945 until the withdrawal in 1991/92, and those in Rödigen by the National People's Army.

 

Personalities

honorary citizen

In addition to politicians and scholars from the university, people who have rendered outstanding service to the city have also been awarded honorary citizenship by the city of Jena.

This honor was bestowed on February 1, 1837 for the first time on February 1, 1837, for the professor of theology, church council and superintendent Eduard Schwarz. Former Chancellor Otto von Bismarck received the award in late July 1894, the day before his visit to the city.

The honorary citizenships granted during the National Socialist period in Germany, including to Adolf Hitler and the then Thuringian Gauleiter Fritz Sauckel, were later revoked.

On March 20, 1991, six awards from the time before reunification in the GDR were revoked, including those of Wolfgang Biermann, who had been the director of the VEB Carl Zeiss Jena for many years.

 

Sons and daughters of the city (selection)

1621-1676: Ernst Friedrich Schröter, legal scholar
1659-1731: Johann Christian Schröter, legal scholar
1675-1747: Johann Adolph Wedel, physician
1676–1752: Friedrich Gottlieb Struve, lawyer and university teacher
1707-1758: Johann Christian Stock, physician
1734–1799: Karl Friedrich Walch, legal scholar
1786-1866: Louise Seidler, painter
1872-1955: Karl Naumann, painter
1881-1977: Margrethe Klenze, painter
1884-1953: Hugo Schmeisser, designer of automatic handguns
1888-1970: Günther Hertwig, anatomist
1891-1950: Walter Eucken, economist and important representative of ordoliberalism
1897-1959: Kurt Held, writer
1903–1994: Erich Schwinge, lawyer
1907–1975: Karl Paul Hensel, national economist
1909-1994: Elisabeth Oestreich, middle-distance runner
1910-1989: Lothar Grisebach, painter
1911-2004: Bernhard zur Lippe-Biesterfeld, Prince of the Netherlands
1913–1997: Wolfgang Stock, sculptor, wood carver, painter and draftsman
1917-2003: Otto Günsche, SS-Sturmbannfuhrer and personal adjutant of Adolf Hitler
1922–2023: John Goodenough, physicist and materials scientist, 2019 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry
1930-2001: Franz Peter Schilling, Apolda's last master bell founder
1932: Margarete Schilling, expert for bells and carillons
1936: Gerlinde Böhnisch-Metzmacher, painter, graphic artist and sculptor
1937-2020: Geert Müller-Gerbes, press officer to the Federal President, journalist and TV presenter
1938: Wulf D. von Lucius, publisher and publicist
1940-2006: Tilo Medek, composer and music publisher
1945: Heikedine Körting, radio play producer
1951: Martin Seifert, actor and speaker
1953: Roland Jahn, journalist and civil rights activist
1955: Siegfried Reiprich, civil rights activist
1967: Petra Kleinert, actress
1969: Sahra Wagenknecht, politician (Die Linke) and publicist
1972: André Kapke, neo-Nazi
1972: Pierre Geisensetter, moderator and actor
1973: Bernd Schneider, soccer player
1975: Beate Zschäpe, NSU terrorist
1975: Ralf Wohlleben, neo-Nazi
1977-2009: Robert Enke, football goalkeeper
1981: Karoline Schuch, actress
1981: Melanie Raabe, writer
1982: Steffen Justus, triathlete
1983: Franz Dinda, cinema and television actor
1983: Robert Marc Lehmann, marine biologist and environmentalist
1984: Diana Riesler, duathlete and triathlete
1985: Albrecht Schuch, actor

 

Personalities who worked on site

Many people who spent part of their lives in Jena have shaped the history of the city and noticeably changed its face. Streets and squares are named after them.

With their work, scholars and students from the Friedrich Schiller University have made a significant contribution to the reputation of the city. In the years 1740/41 the archaeologist Johann Joachim Winckelmann studied in Jena. Johann Christian Günther spent the last weeks of his life here and died in Jena in 1723. Philosophers and poets such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Novalis, Friedrich Schlegel or Friedrich Schiller learned or taught and created their works here. The chemist Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner was looking for a connection between the elements. The logician, mathematician and philosopher Gottlob Frege worked in Jena from 1874 to 1917. He made significant contributions to the foundations of mathematics and linguistic semantics. With their work in Jena, Karl Volkmar Stoy and Peter Petersen made a great contribution to the field of education. Johann Gottlob Marezoll was a nationally known preacher who worked in Jena as senior pastor, superintendent and consistorial councilor. Christian Wilhelm Oemler was also concerned about the improvement of the school system.

In the second half of the 19th century, Carl Zeiss laid the foundations for modern optics in Jena together with Ernst Abbe and Otto Schott. The companies they founded became world famous for manufacturing scientific instruments. Lothar Späth, former Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg, headed one of the successor companies there around 150 years later.

From 1938 until his death in 1960, the children's and youth book author and writer Albert Sixtus lived here. From 1971 until his death in 2010, Curt Letsche, author of science fiction stories, depictions of anti-fascist resistance and crime novels, lived here; he is buried in the North Cemetery.

 

Walter Dexel Scholarship

Since 1997, the city of Jena has honored artists and cultural workers in the region with the Walter Dexel scholarship.

Scholarship holders
1997: Einhard Hopfe, painter and graphic artist
1998: Ines Eck, graphic designer and Fluxus artist
1999: Klaus Wegener, musician
2000: Anne Günther, photographer
2001: Manuela Schwarz, founder of the Tanztheater Jena
2002: Martin Neubert, sculptor
2003: Jan Volker Röhnert, literary scholar and author
2004: Uwe Germar, filmmaker
2005: Sarah Jasinszczak, director
2006: Gerlinde Böhnisch-Metzmacher, painter, graphic artist and sculptor
2007: Martin Stiebert
2008: Robert Seidel
2009: Amira Shemeis, dance teacher
2010: Jana Gunstheimer, painter and production artist
2011: Robert Krainhöfner, sculptor
2012: Romina Voigt and Moritz Gause
2013: Friedemann Ziepert, children's circus director and musician
2014: Sebastian Jung, artist and graphic designer
2015: Thomas Sperling, member of the team at the Kassablanca Cultural Center since the 1990s
2016: Antje Horn, storyteller
2017: Thomas Eckardt, program director of the Jazzmeile Thuringia
2018: Maximilian Lörzer, founder and director of the Psycho-Chor
2019: David Cebulla, nature filmmaker
2020: Ralf Kleist and Philipp Schäffler, musicians
2021: Kathrin Groß-Striffler, writer
2022: Tim Helbig, sound artist

 

Miscellaneous

The inhabitants of the city of Jena are Jenaer and Jenaerinnen. On the other hand, Jenenser and Jenenserinnen are exclusively born in Jena; according to another source, her parents must also have been born in Jena.

To commemorate the victorious Battle of Jena, ships of the French Navy bore the name "Jena": A corvette (1807-1810), a 110-gun battleship (1814-1864) that served as a hulk in Toulon until 1915, and a Ironclad of 1897 that exploded in Toulon harbor in 1907. After that, the name was no longer given to warships. In Paris, the Avenue d'Iéna and the Seine bridge Pont d'Iéna are named after the Battle of Jena.

The asteroid (526) Jena is named after the city.

On the back of the 1964 series 10-mark note was a view of VEB Carl Zeiss Jena. The steeple of St. Johannes Baptist, the only church on an East German banknote, was visible at the bottom left. From 1971, the 10-mark note had different images on the front and back.

In the geologically quite interesting surroundings of the city there are two geological nature trails.

The veins of Jena are a landscape architectural project in Jena-Paradies and an official accompanying project of the Federal Horticultural Show Gera-Ronneburg 2007. They are district heating pipes that have been transformed into art objects.

On May 25, 2009, the city was awarded the title of “Place of Diversity” by the federal government.

In May 2010, the world's largest potato dumpling to date (2023) was prepared on the market square in Jena. The cooking vessel was made of Schott glass.