In the late 19th century the military sought an outer connection between the railway lines radiating out of Berlin.

In the early 1930s a continuation of this link to the east via Schönefeld to Wuhlheide was planned, which would have approximated the route of the current outer ring.

It was significantly closer to Berlin’s southern outskirts that the previous plan and the current outer ring.

The first steps were the construction in 1948 of connecting curves to the outer freight ring between Werder and Golm and between the Berlin–Görlitz line and the north at Berlin-Grünau.

The next steps were the opening of the connecting curve from Karow West junction to Blankenburg (1953), the Wuhlheide marshalling yard (1 October 1953) and, simultaneously, the section from Bergfelde to Falkenhagen and Brieselang, initially as a single track.

In 1958, passenger trains began running on the outer ring as part of the Berlin S-Bahn fare scheme.

As this followed the launch of the first Soviet satellite, these trains, which ran partly on a circular orbit around West Berlin, were commonly called "Sputniks”.

In the same year track was completed on the connection between Hasselberg and Brieselang, and the Hennigsdorf–Wustermark section were electrified experimentally with the 25 kV/50 Hz system.

Class E 251 locomotives built in the Lokomotivbau Elektrotechnische Werke in Hennigsdorf (now owned by Bombardier) were used on the line.

As a result of the decline in freight traffic after German reunification, the Wuhlheide marshalling yard was decommissioned on 10 June 1994 and later abandoned completely.