Jena is the birthplace of the global company Carl Zeiss AG
Armed with a licence from the government and a hundred thalers in start-up capital from his brother, the mechanic Carl Zeiss opened a workshop in Jena on 17 November 1846 with the plan to manufacture precision mechanical and optical instruments, primarily to meet the needs of the local university. The company he established went from strength to strength. Eager to enhance the quality of the microscopes used at the University of Jena, Zeiss began collaborating with Ernst Abbe, a physicist and mathematician working at the university. Abbe succeeded in designing precise microscopes, which they then put into series production. The company grew and Zeiss made Abbe a partner. After Carl Zeiss’s death in 1888, Abbe changed the company into an organization that prioritized the well-being of its employees. He introduced an eight-hour working day in 1900, gave employees a share in the profits and granted them clear rights. He also took care of their health and pension provisions and was strongly committed to the education and training of his workforce.
During the Third Reich, Carl Zeiss’s company was involved in rearming the Wehrmacht and employed slave labourers during the Second World War. After 1945, the Americans, who briefly occupied Thuringia, relocated important company documents and Zeiss employees to Heidenheim in West Germany. The company established in West Germany was named Firma Carl Zeiss Oberkochen. Meanwhile, the Jena factory was almost completely dismantled by the Soviets, but was eventually re-established as the nationalized Carl Zeiss Jena. As a state-owned factory, it was heavily involved in production for the Ministry for State Security and the Soviet military. The two halves of the original firm were eventually reunited after 1990 and developed a reputation for high-performance optics for computer chips. Today, Carl Zeiss AG is a global corporation with branches on several continents and billions in sales, and a key player in the digitalization process.
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