Image info: Newly elected board of directors and executive committee of the Friedrich Ludwig Jahn Society: from left to right: Rayk Peiser, Ingo Peschel, Michael Thomas, Dirk Heinecke, Hartmut Jahn, Luisa Töpel, Bruno Most, Udo Mänicke, Jörg Riemer, Norma Henkel and honorary president Hansgeorg Kling. © Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Gesellschaft e.V., photo: Vincent Grätsch

Upon request, we would be happy to send you the photo in high resolution. Please contact: info@jahn-museum.de

Press release from August 27, 2026

Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Gesellschaft e. V. elects new board and expands its presidium – Surgeon General Dr. Bruno Most new president

The Friedrich Ludwig Jahn Society is a nationwide, non-profit organization dedicated to the research, communication, and critical examination of the life and work of Friedrich Ludwig Jahn and the history of the German gymnastics movement. As the operator of the Friedrich Ludwig Jahn Museum in Freyburg (Unstrut), the society preserves and promotes an authentic site of memory and education concerning German sports and democratic history. Since 2019, the Jahn Museum has been part of the „Places of Democratic History“ network.

The general assembly of the Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Gesellschaft e. V. elected a new executive board and an expanded presidium on August 21, 2026. All candidates were elected unanimously. With this new election, the Jahn Society is initiating a generational shift and, at the same time, a significant expansion of its professional and social network.

Dr. med. Bruno Most from Weißenfels was elected as the new president. The Bundeswehr Surgeon General has been the commander of the Medical Service Operational Support Command in Weißenfels since June 2025. With his many years of leadership and organizational experience as well as his expertise in military history, he aims to help shape the work of the Jahn Society in the future.

The new vice president is Hartmut Jahn from Ahorn near Coburg. The former artistic gymnast, who has been active on a voluntary basis in gymnastics for many years, looks back on around 60 years of club and association work. He has been chairman of the Coburg-Frankenwald gymnastics district since 2006; from 2019 to 2023 he was vice president of the Bavarian Gymnastics Federation.

Rayk Peiser (Burgenlandkreis District Sports Federation) and Dr. Norma Henkel, as Managing Director and Museum Director, were confirmed as Treasurer. The Executive Committee will continue to include Udo Mänicke (Mayor of Freyburg) and Prof. Ingo Peschel (physicist and expert in the history of gymnastics, Berlin). Dr. Michael Thomas (historian and sports scientist, Magdeburg), Dr. Dirk Heinecke (historian and sports scientist, Naumburg), Luisa Töpel, M.A. (museologist and managing director of the Saxony-Anhalt Museum Association, Bernburg), and Jörg Riemer (Germanist and local politician, Weißenfels) were elected as new members of the Executive Committee.

With the new board members, the Jahn Society gains additional expertise in sports and regional history, museum studies, cultural management, schools and education, association work, and municipal and regional cultural work. This is intended to strategically further develop the nationwide Jahn Society through a broad professional base and anchor it more strongly at the regional level.

With special thanks, the Friedrich Ludwig Jahn Society bids farewell to its outgoing president, Dr. Josef Ulfkotte, and its outgoing vice president, Dr. Gerlinde Rohr, neither of whom ran for re-election. The general meeting recognized their many years of commitment and significant dedication to the development of the Jahn Society and the Jahn Museum. Hansgeorg Kling, Josef Ulfkotte's predecessor in office, will continue to serve on the executive committee as honorary president.

Jahn Gymnastics Festival and Interim Exhibition

The new election coincides with a particularly eventful time for the Jahn Society. Around the time of the Jahn Gymnastics Festival, the interim exhibition of the Jahn Museum was opened in the Jahn Hall of Honor on August 19, 2026. The historic Jahn residence will remain closed due to general renovation work, expected until 2029. With the interim exhibition, the museum will remain accessible to visitors even during the construction phase.

The interim exhibition combines parts of the previous permanent exhibition with previously unseen collection items and recent acquisitions, while also providing insight into the history of the Jahn memorial sites and the gymnastics festivals. At the same time, the Jahn Society views this transitional period as an opportunity to open up its collection anew and further advance the redesign of the future permanent exhibition.

Admission to the flea market and the museum is free on this day. Donations are appreciated. Registration by 10/24/2025 via email to info@jahn-museum.de or
by phone at: 034464/27426. Stand setup begins at 8:00 AM. Tables are available on a limited basis. Bringing your own table is recommended. For
In case of bad weather, the flea market will take place in the Ehrenhalle at the Schützenplatz.

When: Friday, October 31, 2025, 10 AM - 4 PM

Where: Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Museum Freyburg, Schloßstraße 11, 06632 Freyburg

Museum Flea Market Flyer for Download (jpg)

The Friedrich Ludwig Jahn Museum will be extensively renovated and expanded from 2026 to 2028 with the support of the town of Freyburg, the Burgenland district and the state of Saxony-Anhalt. As part of the renovation of the residential building, the permanent exhibition, which is over 20 years old, will also be redesigned according to current scientific, historical and didactic exhibition findings. The information event offers the opportunity to view the current conditions on site and to find out what will change and improve in the course of the construction project. There will also be an opportunity to talk to the new managing director and museum director, Dr. Norma Henkel.

The event is free of charge. Pre-registration is not necessary. There is no admission charge to the museum between 2pm and 4pm.

When: Saturday, 10.05.2025, 14-16 o'clock

Where: Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Museum Freyburg, Schloßstraße 11, 06632 Freyburg

Poster for the Day of Urban Development in pdf format.

The 46-year-old archaeologist took over as museum director from Ms. Kristina Kuhn (until September 2023) and Ms. Manuela Dietz (until May 2023). In the position of Managing Director, she succeeds Ms. Stephanie Kaps, who has been managing the Jahn-Gesellschaft on an interim basis since November 2023.

Henkel has extensive experience in strategic public relations work in the cultural and museum sector. After studying archaeology in Halle (Saale), she has worked in various positions in the press department, editorial office and on the staff of the Saxony-Anhalt State Office for the Preservation of Monuments and Archaeology with the State Museum of Prehistory in Halle since 2006. During this time, she has accompanied numerous exhibitions and scientific or cultural tourism projects as well as coordinating various book projects and specialist conferences. For the most part, she worked in parallel on her dissertation on the Neolithic circular ditch complex at Goseck in the Burgenland district, which she successfully completed in 2016. Most recently, as a research assistant in the "GOLEHM Initiative for Earthen Building and Sustainable Circular Economy", she was responsible for the public relations work of the research alliance and gained experience in the renovation of listed buildings.

This experience will now also be put to good use at Henkel's future place of work: from 2026, the former home of the "gymnastics father" will be renovated in line with its listed status. At the end of 2024, the town of Freyburg received the funding decision for 3.3 million euros from the "National Urban Development Projects" investment program of the Federal Ministry of Building (BMWSB). The museum will be completely cleared out by the end of 2025 and the collection of around 17,000 objects, the library collection of almost 7,000 titles and the offices will be housed in alternative premises in Freyburg. The museum is set to reopen in 2028 with a newly designed permanent exhibition. During the renovation work, the museum will continue to operate in the form of an interim exhibition in the Jahn-Ehrenhalle in the town of Freyburg.

The press release with additional interview can be found here as pdf for download.

The new "Jahn-Report" is here: The new issue was published at the beginning of the year, the 59th edition since July 1994. The brochure is an impressive 64 pages long. The first part deals once again with the 100th Jahn gymnastics festival, which took place in Freyburg an der Unstrut in mid-August: reviews from different perspectives illustrate the pleasingly diverse range of events. The new brochure focuses on: the future of the Jahn memorial in Hasenheide, the development of the gymnastics movement in southwest Germany (Gustav von Struve's work), the symposium in Hanau in autumn 2024 (175 years of the DTB) and an appreciation of the fact that sports science has existed in Halle for 100 years.

Information: Email: info@jahn-museum.de or tel. 034464/27426.

Hansgeorg Kling

Information: Email: info@jahn-museum.de or tel. 034464/27426.

Hansgeorg Kling

The majority of the surviving Jahn letters are now kept in the Privy State Archives of Prussian Cultural Heritage in Berlin, the Central and State Library in Berlin, and the Freyburg Jahn Museum. However, many letters have come into private hands over the course of time, while others lie dormant in the archives of the gymnastics clubs. In the new edition of all Jahn letters, the Jahn Society would like to include these letters as far as possible and therefore asks all owners of original Jahn letters to provide a legible photocopy or a digital copy.

Please send the photocopy or the digital copy either to the

Friedrich Ludwig Jahn Museum

Castle road 11

06632 Freyburg (Unstrut)

Tel.: 034464 - 27426

Email: m.dietz@jahn-museum.de

or directly to the editor of the new letter edition

Dr. Josef Ulfkotte

Email: J.Ulfkotte@t-online.de