20th century: 1950 - 1959

January 1: VEB Jenapharm emerges as an independent company from the microbiological laboratory founded in 1944 by the Jena foundations. It is based on Hans Knöll'spenicillin research and the penicillin products (penicillin wound powder) that have been marketed under the brand name "Jenapharm" since 1948.

31 July: The Rosensäle (Rose Rooms), the main reading room (120 seats), is opened as one of the numerous temporary facilities of the University Library, which is now organized on a decentralized basis due to the destruction of the main library building. Some of these facilities remain in use until the new library building is completed in 2002.

22 May: Johannes R. Becher is made an honorary citizen of the city of Jena on the occasion of his 60th birthday due to his particularly close ties to Jena.

Sept. 24: Adolf Donndorf'sfraternity monument, which had been located on Eichplatz until 1947 , finds a new location on Fürstengraben in front of the main university building.

Jan.: The first of the Zeiss specialists (69 people and their families) who were sent to the Soviet Union in 1946 return to Jena.

March 21: The educationalist Peter Petersen, who had made an international impact on school education with his "Jenaplan" model, dies. Petersen had long been dismissed as a "bourgeois pedagogue" and the university school he ran was closed in 1950. His involvement in National Socialism was only discussed decades later. ("Petersen debate").

1 May: The Göschwitz cement works, which had been under the control of the Soviet joint stock company since 1945, is handed over to the GDR and nationalized.

July: With the territorial reorganization of the GDR into districts, largely eliminating the previous states, Jena is assigned to the Gera district, disregarding its close cultural ties to Weimar (Erfurt district).

July 1: The III GDR Athletics Championships open at the Ernst-Abbe-Sportfeld.

October 30: The Fürstengraben is renamed Goetheallee by resolution of the city council.

January 1: Under the direction of Hans Knöll, the Institute for Microbiology and Experimental Therapy (IMET) begins operations at Beutenberg.

1 February: The traditional publishing house Gustav Fischer is nationalized. As a state-owned company, it employs around 70 people and publishes 50 to 60 book titles and 20 journals a year.

April 15: The highway bridge near Göschwitz, which was partially destroyed in April 1945, is reopened to traffic.

June 17: Jena is one of the centers of the popular uprising in Thuringia, with around 20,000 to 25,000 people taking part in demonstrations and other actions. In addition to the general dissatisfaction with the economic, social and political situation, the protests of the Zeiss workers are directed against the elimination of the social achievements and co-determination rights granted by the foundation statute. During demonstrations in the city center on the morning of June 17, the offices of the SED district headquarters in Jena-Stadt and Jena-Land are stormed and vandalized and 61 prisoners are freed from the Am Steiger remand prison. Around midday, six Soviet tanks and teams from the 20th Guards Division stationed in Jena advance into the city center and position themselves in front of strategically important buildings. At 5 p.m., the Soviet city commander declares a state of emergency for Jena. Of those arrested on June 17, the worker Alfred Diener is shot by summary execution on June 18. Other arrestees are sentenced to long prison terms for their involvement in the uprising. Smaller strikes at Zeiss in July, mainly in solidarity with the prisoners, are suppressed and those involved are sentenced to prison or dismissed.

September 1: The agricultural institutes spun off from the university's Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences are constituted as the Faculty of Agriculture.

October 11: A new school building is inaugurated on the Anger (later Johannes R. Becher School).

July 25: The new outdoor pool at Jenzig (Ostbad) is opened. Together with the expansion of the "Schleichersee" - a lake created by gravel extraction in the Oberaue - into an outdoor pool (Südbad) from the beginning of the 1950s, this ends the era of river pools on the Saale. The "Lichtenhainer Bad" is the last to close (1954).

November 14: With the founding of the Motor Jena sports club, a state-sponsored center of GDR high-performance sport develops.

The "Jena" book, compiledunder the direction of geographer Joachim H. Schultze, sets standards in modern urban geography as an interdisciplinary analysis of "Jena's development, growth and development opportunities".

April 2: The city church of St. Michael, which was severely damaged during the war, is rededicatedafter reconstruction work in the presence of Thuringian Bishop Moritz Mitzenheim. Master builder Friedrich Ilmer presents the bishop with the church key.

May 14: As part of the celebrations to mark the 150th anniversary of Friedrich Schiller'sdeath in Weimar and Jena, the Faculty of Philosophy at Jena University awards the poet Thomas Mann an honorary doctorate.

July 2-3: Flooding occurs in Ammerbach and Ringwiese after heavy rainfall.

September 16: The rebuilt Theaterhaus is reopened as Haus Jena of the Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar.

October 14: On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Jena and Auerstedt, a "1806 Memorial" opens in the "Grüner Baum zur Nachtigall" restaurant in Cospeda. The museum is based on the collections of innkeeper Walter Lange, who becomes a local celebrity as the "Napoleon of Jena".

November 30: The Physics Ball (mathematics and physics student councils) includes cabaret interludes critical of the SED. The demanded punishments for those involved are initially not carried out, and it is not until two years later that convictions are handed down.

December 2: The extension to the main post office on Westbahnhofstrasse/Ernst-Haeckel-Platz is opened. The exterior façade bears a large sgraffito by Kurt Hanf ("Der Weg der Post").

The shells of the new buildings of the Physiological-Chemical and Pharmacological Institutes of the Faculty of Medicine at Holzmarkt/Nonnenplan are completed.

September 5: The new Jenaer Milchhof (large dairy) in Jena-Löbstedt is inaugurated.

Start of construction of the "Nord I" residential area. Between 1958 and 1968, more than 3,000 apartments and supply facilities are built in the north of Jena (North I and North II) in large industrial block construction.

February: A wave of arrests by the Ministry of State Security among Jena students mainly affects members of the resistance organization "Eisenberger Kreis". In the fall, prison sentences of up to 15 years are imposed at the district court in Gera.

August 28 - September 5: The 400th anniversary celebrations of Friedrich Schiller University take place in an atmosphere of intensifying Cold War tensions. At the university itself, the situation is characterized by the intensification of repression against forces critical of the system and the increasing integration of the university into the system of state control with restrictions on the university's research and teaching autonomy. The spectacular escape of the rector in office, Josef Hämel, to West Germany shortly before the jubilee celebrationsadded further fuel to the fire. Most university representatives from West Germany and Western European countries stay away from the official celebrations, which, according to GDR university policy and SED forces at the university, are intended to document the progress made in the "socialist transformation" of the university.

July 1: The construction of a 16-storey high-rise building for the research department of VEB Carl Zeiss Jena begins on Schillerstraße as an urbanistic conclusion to the block development of the main factory (Building 59), based on a design by Jena architect Hans Schlag. Several residential and commercial buildings on the southern Johannisplatz had to be demolished for the new building. The building is completed by 1965.

September 13: The Jena-Schöngleina airfield, which was partially destroyed in 1945, is put back into operation with the first motorized flight day.