20th century: 1980 - 1989

After years of legal disputes, an agreement is reached in the trademark dispute between Schott-Jena and Schott-Mainz: the name element "Schott" (together with the figurative mark) is secured by the Mainzer Glaswerk, the name element "Jenaer Glas" by VEB Jenaer Glaswerk. Jenaer Glaswerk operates under the new "Flammenzeichen" logo.

To "promote jazz as a musical art form", "Jazz im Paradies" is founded as a university student club (a registered association from 1990). Concerts take place until 1988, primarily as part of the "Jena Jazz Days".

July 14-19: The "9th International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation" is held in Jena to mark the 100th anniversary of Albert Einstein'sbirth. Around 850 scientists from 51 countries take part in the conference, which is chaired by Ernst Schmutzer.

December 16: The Clinic for Internal Medicine is opened in Lobeda-Ost as part of the University Hospital.

Construction begins on the large housing estate Winzerla, which is completed in three phases by 1990. On completion, around 15,000 people live here.

April 12: Matthias Domaschk, an opposition youth from Jena, dies in the Gera remand prison of the Ministry of State Security under circumstances that have not yet been clarified.

May 13: FC Carl Zeiss Jena plays the final of the European Cup Winners' Cup against Dynamo Tbilisi in Düsseldorf and loses 2:1.

September 30: The new four-lane bridge built a few meters downstream next to the old Paradiesbrücke is opened to traffic.

October 6: The house at Unterm Markt 12a is opened under the name "Romantikerhaus" as a literary museum of early German Romanticism as part of the Jena Municipal Museums. The incorrect attribution "Romantikerhaus" is based on the assumption that it was the home of the Schlegelcouple .

January 12: The "Young Community" of Jena-Stadtmitte initiates the "Jena Appeal for Disarmament" and a collection of signatures. The State Security takes massive action against it and arrests eight participants.

26 January: The "Memorial to the Heroes of the Anti-Fascist Resistance Struggle" at the North Cemetery, which focuses on the memory of the communist anti-fascist resistance fighter Magnus Poser, is inaugurated. Until 1989, it serves as a backdrop for events organized by mass organizations and the NVA for the ritualized swearing-in of anti-fascism.

April 25: The tradition of the Jena Brewery Market is revived to mark the first mention of Jena's brewing rights 650 years ago.

September 11-19: The district of Zwätzen celebrates the first documentary mention of the village 800 years ago with a week of festivities.

March 19: For the first time, a group calling itself the "Jena Peace Community" registers an event with the city council. Its members subsequently use official demonstrations in Jena to articulate their own demands and carry out actions critical of the GDR, for example on March 18 and May 19. As part of the "Counter-Strike" actions, most members of the Peace Community - including Roland Jahn as a leading member -are deported to West Germany by June 7.

June 18: The existence of the "White Circle", a group of people who publicly articulate their desire to leave the country, is proven for the first time. As a result, arrests are made among the people in the "Platz der

Cosmonauts" in white T-shirts, convictions and later the release of prisoners by the Federal Republic of Germany.

June 22-24: Jena is the venue for the XX Workers' Festival of the GDR. The festival venues are the redesigned Capitol cinema and the Platz der Kosmonauten, where the opening event takes place.

September 5-9: (Old) Lobeda celebrates its 700th anniversary as a town.

January: The auditorium of the municipal theater is demolished. The planned and projected complete reconstruction is stopped in 1987 due to a lack of funds and resources. No more performances take place in the building until 1990.

November: As part of the Protestant Churches' Decade of Peace, Albrecht Schröterfounds the "Jena Working Group on Judaism", which sets itself the task of researching and documenting the history of Jewish life in Jena.

December 1: The reconstructed planetarium of the Carl Zeiss Foundation, which has been retrofitted with modern technology, is ceremonially reopened.

The "Territorial Rationalization" interest group is founded to optimize cooperation between companies, local institutions and authorities. Its main aim is to solve problems with the supply of housing and to counteract a deterioration in working and living conditions.

September 30: The first inner-city residential area in prefabricated construction is handed over at Rähmen. 343 apartments are built.

October 1-7: The town's inhabitants celebrate the 750th anniversary of the town's founding with a week of festivities. The highlight is a parade on October 7, which is organized by around 5,500 participants. The initiators of the town's anniversary follow the more or less arbitrary determination of the corresponding document in 1936 to the year 1236.

December 20: The double-track extension of the streetcar line from the city center to Winzerla is completed.

February 10: Hans Span is elected as the new Lord Mayor by the city council to succeedWalter Windrich.

February 28: A delegation from the Erlangen City Council visits Jena from February 26 to 28. In the plenary hall of the town hall, the agreement between Erlangen and Jena on the establishment of a town twinning is initialedby Lord Mayors Dietmar Hahlweg and Hans Span .

April 8: In the auditorium of the Friedrich Schiller University, the Jena City Council approves the agreement on the town twinning with Erlangen. Police officers and employees of the MfS district office prevent the planpreviously agreedbetween Roland Jahn and the citizens' initiative "Artists for Others" to take part in the special session.

August 7: The foundation stone for the first genetic engineering pilot plant in the GDR is laid on the Beutenberg.

New buildings in the Saalstraße/Unterlauengasse area are handed over. The height and construction of the prefabricated residential buildings are adapted to the inner-city conditions.

March 8: Following the conversion of the Alte Göhre into a city museum, it is reopened with a permanent city history exhibition.

March 29: The "Jena Urban Ecology Interest Group" is founded as part of the Society for Nature and the Environment in the Cultural Association of the GDR. It forms the nucleus of an independent ecology movement.

4-10 April: A youth group from Erlangen visits Jena for the first time, organized by the Stadtjugendring Erlangen.

September 12: Wolfgang Biermann, General Director of the VEB Carl Zeiss Jena combine, presents the first one-megabit memory circuit developed in the GDR to Erich Honecker in Berlin .

November 3: The "Leseladen mit Jenaer Umweltbibliothek" is founded, modeled on the Berlin Environmental Library. Its main task is to collect the materials of the Ecology Circle from the Junge Gemeinde Stadtmitte as well as books and materials from fellow campaigners who have left the area.

November 9: A memorial plaque commemorating the deportation of Jewish citizens and Sinti and Roma to the extermination camps is unveiled at the Westbahnhof to mark the 50th anniversary of "Kristallnacht".

May 7: The local elections, held according to the usual principle of single lists, are accompanied by an unprecedented level of publicity during the vote count. The electoral fraud that became apparent in the process was the subject of mass demonstrations in the fall of the year.

25 September: With the founding of the New Forum, the first permanent organizational form of the oppositional citizens' movement in Jena emerges.

October 8: The seven-part television film "The Glass Torch", based on the novel of the same name by Wolfgang Held, is broadcast on GDR television. It depicts the lives of a fictional family closely linked to the Carl Zeiss company over five generations. The series is partly filmed at original locations in Jena with the help of numerous extras from Jena.

October 8: The first Jena prayer of intercession (prayer for peace) is held in St. Michael's Church.

October 8/19: The Social Democratic Party (SDP; later SPD) and the "Democratic Awakening" party are founded in Jena. These are the first new parties to emerge during the period of upheaval in the GDR.

October 25: The first major public demonstrations take place to protest against the falsification of the local elections on May 7.

November 4: More than 40,000 citizens take part in a citizens' forum on Platz der Kosmonauten.

November 19: Around 10,000 participants respond to a call by the New Forum for a protest demonstration.

December 1: The 1st "Round Table" meets in Jena City Hall. 25 representatives of parties, movements, institutions and organizations take part.

December 4: Demonstrating citizens occupy the district office of the Ministry of State Security in Jena Am Anger 13.