Jena - History

History

Jena was first mentioned in an 1182 document. In the 11th century it was a possession of the lords of Lobdeburg but, in the following century, it developed into an independent market town with laws and magistrates of its own. The local economy was based mainly on wine production. In 1286, the Dominicans were established in the city, followed by the Cistercians in 1301.

The margraves of Meißen imposed their authority over Jena in 1331. From 1423, it belonged to the Electorate of Saxony of the House of Wettin, which had inherited Meißen and remained under them after the division of Wettin lands in 1485.

The Protestant Reformation was brought to the city in 1523. In the following years, the Dominican and the Carmelite convents were attacked by the townsmen. In 1558, the university (now called the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena) was founded by elector John Frederick the Magnanimous.

For a short period (1672–1690), Jena was the capital of an independent dukedom (Saxe-Jena). In 1692, it was annexed to Saxe-Eisenach and, in 1741, to the Duchy (later Grand Duchy) of Saxe-Weimar, to which it belonged until 1918.

At the end of the 18th century, the university became the largest and most famous one among the German states and made Jena the centre of idealist philosophy (with professors like Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Schiller and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling) and of the early romanticism (with poets like Novalis, the brothers August and Friedrich Schlegel, and Ludwig Tieck). In 1794, the poets Goethe and Schiller met at the university and established a long lasting friendship.

On 14 October 1806, Napoleon fought and defeated the Prussian army here in the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt. Resistance against the French occupation was strong, especially among the town students. Many of the students fought in the Lützow Free Corps in 1813. Two years later, the Urburschenschaft fraternity was founded in the city.

At the end of the 19th century, with the building of the Saal Railway (Saalbahn) along the river Saale from Halle/Leipzig to Nuremberg, Jena became a centre for precision machinery, optics and glass making, with the formation of the world famous companies Carl Zeiss Jena and Schott Jenaer Glaswerk, by Carl Zeiss, Ernst Abbe and Otto Schott.

In 1945, towards the end of World War II, Jena was heavily bombed by the American and British Allies. 153 people were killed and most of the medieval town centre was destroyed (though restored after the end of the war).

Part of the State of Thuringia from its foundation in 1920 on, it was incorporated into the German Democratic Republic in 1949 and its district of Gera in 1952. Since 1990, the city of Jena has been a part of the Free State of Thuringia in the united Federal Republic of Germany.