Like the DB Class 65 built for the Deutsche Bundesbahn in West Germany, the DR Class 65.10 was intended by the Deutsche Reichsbahn (DR) in East Germany for commuter traffic on suburban railways.

The DR procured a total of 88 examples of this class, and 7 more went to the Leuna chemical works.

Numbers 1001 and 1002 were built at VEB Lokomotivbau Elektrotechnische Werke (LEW), formerly Borsig Lokomotiv Werke (AEG), Hennigsdorf, and the production models at VEB Lokomotivbau Karl Marx, (LKM, formerly Orenstein & Koppel) Babelsberg.

Number 65 1004 was the only German tank engine to be equipped with a Wendler coal dust firing system which, after modifications to the design, ran perfectly well.

The 65.10s were stationed all over East Germany, except in the DR's northern locomotive depots (Bahnbetriebswerke or Bw), and in the 1960s were preferred as the motive power for commuter traffic with double-decker trains as well as on push-pull services.