The German national railways had already procured small locomotives of classes Kö I (up to 39 hp or 29 kW) and Köf II (up to 149 hp or 111 kW for light shunting duties at small and medium-sized railway station.

These 8 prototype models all differed in gearing and engine type for comparison purposes: this led to a standard locomotives with a Mannheim works engine of type RHS 518A with a nominal power of 177 kW (237 hp) and hydraulic transmission of type L213U from Voith, drive to the wheels was by chain drive - these were given the classification name: Köf 11 With the introduction of the new numbering scheme in 1968 (see DB locomotive classification for more details) the 317 locomotives built to this specification (including the 5 Köf 11 prototypes) were given the class number 332, the 3 slower Köf 10 prototypes received class number 331; when the maximum speed was raised to 45 km/h by rebuilding in the 80s 331 001 and 002 were reclassified as type 332 and received the numbers 332 601 and 602 respectively from 1992 onwards.

The drivers cabin rests on the outside frame and is removable; thus the overall clearance of the locomotive can be easily reduced for transportation on an open wagon to another place.

The buffer beams are impact absorbing and are relatively simply replaced - for example in the case of them being damaged by over enthusiastic shunting operations.

Because the speed of operation of the air compressors which supply the air brake is dependent on the engine speed, one can frequently observe at train stations the locomotive's engines being run (in neutral) at full power to give more braking force.

Locomotives of class 335 differ from class 333 by having indicator lamps which indicate the status of the vehicle to a remote operator as well as an additional box for the remote control on the outside of the drivers cab rear wall Class 335 also have an automatic shunting coupling of a claw type which can also be remoted drawn up out of the way for normal manual screw coupling to take place.