The history, economy, and culture of JENA, a university city in east-central Germany and one of the most important cities in the federal state of Thuringia.

1. Jena

2. Overview
 Jena is a university city in east-central
Germany and the second-largest city
in the federal state of Thuringia (map
displayed opposite).
 It is located on the Saale River, east of
Weimar.
 Along with Erfurt and Weimar, the two
closest cities, Jena makes up the
metropolitan area of Thuringia with a
population of almost 500,000, whereas
the city itself has a population of over
110,000 (111,099 at the December 31,
2017 census).
 Jena is a center of education and
research; the Friedrich Schiller
University, founded in 1558, had an
enrollment of 18,000 in 2017, while the
Ernst-Abbe-Fachhochschule has an
additional 5,000 students.
 The city is also home to numerous
institutes of the prominent German
research societies.
 Thomas Nitzsche of the Free
Democratic Party (FDP) is the current
Lord Mayor (Oberbürgermeister) of Jena.

3. Thomas Nitzsche (FDP), current
Lord Mayor of Jena

4. History: Middle Ages to 19th century
 Jena was first mentioned in 1182 as Jani; it
was granted town rights around 1230 and
was governed by the Margraves of Meissen
from the mid-14th century.
 The House of Wettin, which controlled the
margraviate and, after 1423, the electorate
of Saxony, was split in 1485; Jena
consequently fell to the dukes of the
Ernestine branch.
 In 1558, Elector of Saxony Johann
Friedrich the Magnanimous (opposite)
founded Friedrich Schiller University as an
academy; it advanced to university status
in 1577.
 It thrived under Duke Karl Augustus, client
of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, from
1787–1806; during this nearly twenty-year
period, the philosophers Johann Fichte,
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and
Friedrich von Schelling and the writers
August von Schlegel and Friedrich Schiller
were on its teaching staff.

5. Friedrich Schiller University

6. History: Middle Ages to 19th century –
cont.
 Friedrich Schiller University was
long in the foreground of German
universities in the liberal recognition
of new ideas.
 The evolutionist Ernst Haeckel
(opposite) was a significant figure at
the university in the mid-19th
century.
 Philosopher, economist, political
theorist and socialist revolutionary
Karl Marx obtained a doctor’s
degree from the university in
absentia in 1841.
 The university’s tower (400 feet, 122
meters) is one of Jena’s famous
landmarks.

7. History: Middle Ages to 19th century –
cont.
 Jena was the center of the Duchy of Saxe-Jena from 1672–1690; it
remained a ducal residence until 1918.
 Napoleon won a remarkable victory over the Prussian army on the
precipices north of Jena in 1806.

8. Battle of Jena–Auerstedt, 1806

9. History: Post-WWII
 Jena was heavily damaged by
American and British bombing
(Löbderstrasse after the February
1945 bombing shown opposite) in
1945, near the end of World War II.
 During the Allied occupation of
Germany, Jena fell within the Soviet
zone.
 It was part of the German
Democratic Republic, or East
Germany, when Germany was
divided from 1949–1990.
 In 1953, Jena was a hotbed of the
East German Uprising against the
communist government; 30,000
East German citizens took part in
the protests.
 The opposition against the East
German government was not
strengthened until the late 1980s
when, in 1989, Jena was the sight of
the largest demonstrations in the
German Democratic Republic’s

10. Map of Germany, occupation
zones

11. East German Uprising, June,
1953

12. Demonstration in late November, 1989: “For recognition of the
new parties and citizens’ movements and for free elections in
the DDR”

13. History: Post-WWII – cont.
 Upon Germany’s reunification in
October 1990, Jena became part of
the reestablished federal state of
Thuringia.
 In the years following reunification
and the end of the Cold War,
industry entered a hard crisis, but it
still successfully shifted to the
market economy from the planned
economy of the former East
Germany (the JenTower, opposite,
is a symbol of the East German
economy); Jena is now one of the
main economic centers of eastern
Germany.
 Friedrich Schiller University was
expanded; in addition, numerous
new research institutes were
founded.

14. Economy and notable structures
 A rail junction, Jena is an important
center for visual and precision
instruments and glass products.
 It has a major pharmaceutical industry
and numerous biotechnology and
microelectronic companies.
 Some of its remarkable structures
include the old university buildings, the
14th-century town hall and St.
Michael’s Church (opposite).
 Numerous towers from the medieval
fortification ramparts still exist.
 University buildings inhabit the site of
the former ducal palace where Goethe
wrote his novel Hermann und
Dorothea (Hermann and Dorothea).
 Jena is also home to the Max Planck
Institutes for Biogeochemistry,
Chemical Ecology, and Economics.
 There are also botanical gardens, a
planetarium, and civic and university
museums throughout the city.

15. Town hall

16. Sources
 https://www.britannica.com/place/Jena-Germany
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jena