In 1926 the German government forced the airline to merge with Junkers Luftverkehr to form Deutsche Luft Hansa, the flag carrier of the Weimar Republic.

The AEG company, a large producer of electrical equipment, started building airplanes for the military during World War I.

To create continued demand for this new product after the end of the war, the company started a commercial airline, the D.L.R.

This was a joint venture of AEG, the HAPAG, Luftschiffbau Zeppelin, the Deutsche Bank and Dornier Metallbauten.

In its first year, 1919, the airline operated regularly scheduled flights on routes with a combined length of 1580 km (nearly 1000 miles).

By 1921 the route network was more than 3000 km (1865 miles) long, and included destinations in the Netherlands, Scandinavia and the Baltic Republics.

was one of the founding members of International Air Traffic Association, the predecessor to today's IATA.