20th century: 1910 - 1919

The hotel "Zum Fürstenhof" is built at Löbdergraben 12 with 70 rooms and over 100 beds, making it the largest and most elegant hotel in the city (opened in 1911). It has to close in 1920 due to economic problems.

April: The Jena Shooting Society inaugurates a generously designed facility on Kieshügel in the north of Jena as its new home.

Jena's population exceeds 40,000 for the first time (41,129).

On the initiative of the Women's Welfare Association, the Mothers' and Babies' Home for unmarried mothers opens in Talstrasse.

March 7: The "Verein für Bewegungsspiele Jena" is founded.

July 12: The Heimstätten-Genossenschaft Jena is founded. The Heimstätten movement, which is active throughout Germany, rejects the building of tenements and advocates new, looser forms of housing.

July 20: The art historian Botho Graef, a driving force behind Jena's development into a modern art city, proposes the creation of a separate art collection by the Jenaer Kunstverein in the "Jenaische Zeitung". This is subsequently established through acquisitions by the association and donations from artists.

July 30: A monument is dedicated on Carl-Zeiss-Platz in honor of Ernst Abbe's life's work. The creators of the "Gesamtkunstwerk" are Henry van de Velde (design of the "Temple" as an octagonal central building), Max Klinger (Abbe's herm) and Constantin Meunier (bronze wall reliefs "Monument to Labor").

September 10-16: The German Social Democrats hold a Reich Party Congress in the Volkshaus (again in 1913).

The number of students at Jena University exceeds two thousand for the first time.

Otto Schott acquires a 5-hectare area in the Jena forest as a gymnastics and forest playground for company employees. The "Otto-Schott-Platz" develops into a popular local recreation destination and venue for company parties and other major events.

April 16: The new lyceum building in Kaiser-Wilhelm-Straße is inaugurated (today: "Grete Unrein" integrated comprehensive school). The ten-class lyceum with Realgymnasium courses leading to the Abitur, the first public secondary school for girls in Jena, had been established in 1909 under the direction of Otto Unrein.

September 30: Heinrich Singer resigns from his office as Lord Mayor after 23 years in office in connection with financial irregularities in the city administration.

November 30: The "Association of Lobdeburg Friends" is founded. In 1925, it merges with the Lobeda local beautification association, founded in 1897, to form the "Lobdeburg-Gemeinde 1912 e. V.".

December 1: The Jena-based Higher Administrative Court is founded as a joint institution of the Thuringian states (excluding Saxony-Meiningen and the Prussian principalities).

December 20: The Jena City Savings Bank is opened at Löbdergraben 28.

January: The incorporation of Lichtenhain and Ziegenhain into Jena at the end of 1912 becomes official.

April 7: The Stiftungssparkasse moves into its new building in Postgasse (today: Ludwig-Weimar-Gasse) 5.

October: The first single-family homes built by the Heimstättengenossenschaft in a typical garden city structure are occupied in Ziegenhainer Tal.

October 15: Willy Eickemeyer founds the Conservatory of Music ("Eickemeyersche Konservatorium"). It plays an important role in Jena's musical life until its dissolution in 1944.

November 15: The new Camsdorf Bridge is opened to traffic. The demolition of the old bridge, which dates back to the Middle Ages and no longer meets the requirements of modern traffic, had begun in 1912. The new bridge enables streetcar traffic to Wenigenjena (from 1914).

January 31: The new building of the University Surgical Clinic with 360 beds is put into operation.

April 22: The municipal secondary school moves into a newly constructed building in Obere Wöllnitzer/Wöllnitzer Straße.

End of July/1 August: In the run-up to the First World War, the mood among the Jena population is divided. Those in favor of the war include students, sections of the middle classes and grammar school pupils. On July 28, 2,500 mostly social democratic workers gather for a peace rally in the Volkshaus. During demonstrations in the evening on the market square, there are violent clashes between opponents and supporters of the war. After the outbreak of war, the wave of enthusiasm for the war clearly drowns out protests and doubts. High school and university students in particular volunteer for the war effort.

The development of the Damenviertel, which began in 1895, is essentially completed. A structurally closed residential area is created with over 200 three- to four-storey residential buildings in the Gründerstil and Jugendstil styles.

January 2: A hospital train B3, financed and equipped with donations from the people of Jena, departs for the front with 35 wagons and 44 accompanying personnel.

January 6: The new Carolo Alexandrinum school building in Lessingstraße (Am Steiger) is opened.

January 11: The War Archive of the Jena University Library emerges from the War News Collection Point No. 2 of the XI Army Corps.

from June: Due to the shortage of labor resulting from conscription to the front, women are employed as streetcar conductors and letter carriers for the first time. In the Zeiss factory, more and more female helpers and increasingly also prisoners of war are deployed.

March 1: As a result of supply shortages, food offices are set up and ration cards are distributed for the first time.

April 23/24: Around 60 opponents of the war and the social democratic policy of toleration from the left-wing workers' youth movement and the Spartacus group meet in Jena under the leadership of Karl Liebknecht for an illegal anti-war conference ("Easter Conference").

May 11: Max Reger, composer, conductor, pianist and organist, dies. After moving to Jena in 1915, he had given a strong impetus to the city's musical life.

November 16: A "female students' association" is founded at the university.

March: The construction of a high-rise building in the courtyard of the Zeiss factory, begun in 1915, is completed (Building 15). The eleven-storey building, designedby architect Friedrich Pützer, is one of the earliest high-rise buildings in Germany.

April 9: The art historian Botho Graef, spiritus rector of Jena's art life and the Jena Art Association, passes away. The painter and graphic artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner donates 260 woodcuts, lithographs and etchings to the Jenaer Kunstverein in memory of his patron ("Botho Graef Foundation"). The valuable holdings of the Jena art collection are largely lost in 1937 as part of the "Degenerate Art" campaign.

June 30: Jussuf Ibrahim, appointed Professor of Pediatrics and Director of the Children's Hospital established with funds from the Carl Zeiss Foundation, holds his inaugural lecture. His achievements include the training of baby nurses.

Mid-year: Despite rationing, there are increasing supply shortages of basic foodstuffs, especially potatoes.

2nd half of the year: Gas and electricity prices are drastically increased with increasingly limited supply, gas supply is completely cut off in October.

Beginning of the year: Food supplies deteriorate drastically, with rations of the most important staple foods being reduced further and further. Housing rents rise. Protests and hunger riots break out.

July and October: The "Spanish flu", which is rampant in Thuringia, also claims numerous lives in Jena.

October 7: The technical school for ophthalmic optics ("Grand Ducal Saxon School of Optics") founded in 1917 to train specialists in the manufacture of spectacles is opened.

November: At the end of the war, 1,459 people lost their lives on the front in Jena. The number of wounded, traumatized, widows and orphans cannot be determined.

For the first time, 5, 10, 20 and 50 mark bills are put into circulation.

November 9: A Workers' and Soldiers' Council is formed, made up of equal numbers of SPD and USPD members (Chairman: Albert Rudolph, SPD; Deputy Chairman: Gertrud Morgner, USPD). The council subsequently exercises certain control functions over the city administration, which remains in office.

December 11: A "Citizens' Council" headed bythe lawyer Gustav Lotze is formed as a counterweight to the proletarian Workers' and Soldiers' Council.

January 19: In the elections to the National Assembly, the SPD in Jena receives almost 50% of the vote with a 90% turnout. The left-liberal German Democratic Party and the two conservative parties (Deutsche Volkspartei, Deutschnationale Volkspartei) together received around 20% of the vote each and the USPD 7%. The SPD is also clearly in first place in the following state elections on March 9 with 44%.

February 3-4: The Central Association of German Industrialists and the Federation of Industrialists meet in the university auditorium. They decide to found the Reich Association of German Industry.

February 25: The umbrella organization "Volkshochschule Thüringen" is founded in Jena. As a result, the Jena Adult Education Center is founded under the direction of the reform pedagogue Wilhelm Flitner.

March 23: In the municipal council elections, the SPD achieves around 40% of the vote with a turnout of around 66.5%, the DDP around 20%, the conservative parties together around 24% and the USPD around 16%.

April 13: The German People's Party under Gustav Stresemann holds its first Reich Party Congress in Jena

May 1: May Day is celebrated as a public holiday in Jena for the first time.

August 7: The Allgemeine Deutsche Waffenring is founded in Jena as an umbrella organization for student fraternities

The Jena AStA protests against the use of the colors "black-red-gold" as the republican national colors.

August 9: The zoologist Ernst Haeckel, one of the outstanding Jena professors of his time, passes away.

December 9: The "Freie Volksbühne Jena" is founded as part of the popular theater movement with popular educational goals. The Zeiss chemist Mordko Herschkowitzis a long-standing member of the board .