Prof. Michael Kaschke is an honorary citizen of the city of Jena

The city of Jena has a new honorary citizen: Prof. Michael Kaschke was awarded this special distinction at a ceremonial meeting of the city council this evening. In April 2025, the Jena City Council voted unanimously in favor of this step. It has been almost ten years since the city last awarded an honorary citizenship - back then to the former Lord Mayor of Jena, Peter Röhlinger.

Strengthening the city of Jena with a vision for the ZEISS site

Prof. Kaschke was Chairman of the Executive Board of Carl Zeiss AG from 2011 to 2020. During this time, the decision was made to launch the construction of the new ZEISS high-tech site in Jena with an investment of several hundred million euros.

"Prof. Kaschke has rendered outstanding services to the well-being and reputation of our city by providing significant impetus to the success story of the city of his alma mater through his vision for the future of the ZEISS site in Jena and the investment decisions he initiated",

emphasized Dr. Albrecht Schröter in his laudatory speech. As Lord Mayor at the time, he had taken the initiative to award the honorary citizenship and supported the application.

"This decision will sustainably strengthen Jena as the founding location of ZEISS for the future. This applies to the company itself as well as to the research and university landscape and the business location as such,"

said Jena's current Lord Mayor Dr. Thomas Nitzsche.

Michael Kaschke, who was born in Greiz in 1957, studied physics in Jena. He was awarded a doctorate in 1986 and a doctorate in 1988. He had seamlessly joined "the ranks of the company's great managing directors and CEOs", said Nitzsche.

"Abbe and Zeiss would have been delighted" because Prof. Kaschke combines both: "scientific depth AND entrepreneurial thinking. This type of science-based entrepreneurship is very rare, both then and now."

The Lord Mayor described Prof. Kaschke as the "prototype of the CEO of Carl Zeiss AG" - an extremely successful entrepreneur, an accomplished scientist with numerous patent applications, a physicist who works with precision, whose actions are oriented towards the common good and who is also modest.

Comprehensive commitment to science and business

The new honorary citizen was also the driving force behind the founding of Carl Zeiss Meditec AG in 2002, which has since developed into a successful listed medical technology company in Germany with its headquarters in Jena. From 2008 to 2010, Prof. Kaschke was also Chairman of the Executive Board of Carl Zeiss Meditec AG. However, he was not only committed to Jena, but also took on numerous other commitments in business and science. For example, he was a long-standing member of the University Council of Friedrich Schiller University Jena and has been President of the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft since 2022. In 2018, he received an honorary doctorate from Friedrich Schiller University Jena.

Further promoting Jena's scientific appeal

"It is one of Prof. Kaschke's strengths to encourage others to set out together in order to soon play in a 'different league',"

laudator Schröter emphasized with reference to another of Kaschke's projects: the establishment of the German Optical Museum Foundation with the aim of developing the Jena Optical Museum into the German Optical Museum (D.O.M.) is largely due to his initiative. He was also involved in the ZEISS location fund, which was set up in 2011. This supports projects such as the witelo association (scientific and technical learning locations in Jena) and the Kulturarena.

"Through his work, Prof. Kaschke has had a decisive influence on the development of the city and has rendered outstanding services to the well-being of its inhabitants,"

summarized Lord Mayor Nitzsche.

Highest award as an expression of great gratitude

Prof. Kaschke was not only awarded honorary citizenship in the evening, he was also allowed to sign the Golden Book of the City of Jena as a further sign of recognition. Dr. Schröter:

"Honorary citizenship is the highest award that a city can bestow for outstanding services. In this respect, awarding it is an expression of great gratitude and the joy that a city is honored by the person it honors."

Background: Honorary citizen of the city of Jena

The city of Jena awarded honorary citizenship for the first time in 1837, with the last award taking place in 2016. A total of 78 honorary citizenships have been awarded, twelve of which were revoked or rescinded - including all those awarded during the Nazi era. With Prof. Kaschke, 67 people will now be listed as honorary citizens of Jena.

The ZEISS company has so far produced seven honorary citizens - although Wolfgang Biermann, who was awarded the honor on October 5, 1989 on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the GDR, was stripped of it again a year and a half later.
The company founder himself, Carl Zeiß, who lived from 1816 to 1888, was never nominated for an honorary citizenship. As a result, there was never a vote in the municipal council.

In purely legal terms, honorary citizenship expires upon death. Jena therefore currently has four honorary citizens in addition to Prof. Kaschke: Wolfgang Meyer, former Managing Director of SCHOTT JENAer Glas GmbH, Gerd Schuchardt, former Deputy Prime Minister, Franz-Ferdinand von Falkenhausen, former Managing Director of Carl Zeiss Jena GmbH, and Peter Röhlinger, Jena's Lord Mayor from 1990 to 2006.