The line is part of the route from Dresden to Wrocław and Pan-European Transport Corridor III.

The Saxon-Silesian Railway Company (German: Sächsisch-Schlesische Eisenbahngesellschaft) was established for the construction of the line, with capital of six million thalers.

A test run between Löbau and Reichenbach was held on 29 April 1847 and the section was opened on 1 July of that year.

[3] With the outbreak of the Second World War on 1 September 1939, restrictions were soon imposed on the right of the public to travel on trains.

On 20 April the 52nd Soviet army began an attack on the defences of the Wehrmacht and the Volkssturm in the town centre.

After the end of the war on 9 May 1945, almost all of the line was unusable, since all the bridges between Görlitz and Bautzen had been blown up or otherwise destroyed by the German Army on 7 May 1945, including the Neisse viaduct in Görlitz, the rail bridge in Löbau and the Spree viaduct in Bautzen.

[7][8] In March 1946 work began on removing one track between Dresden and Görlitz to provide reparations to the Soviet Union.

On 16 October 1994, the last remaining significant section of the line between Breitendorf and Löbau was restored to two tracks.

Single track initially remained on short section of line between Schlauroth junction and Görlitz.

In 2002 electrical contact wire was installed on the short section between Dresden-Neustadt and Dresden-Klotzsche for the S-Bahn service to Dresden Airport.

This is intended to reduce travel times for EuroCity and InterCity trains with traditional railway vehicles to about 3 hours 45 minutes between Dresden and Wroclaw.

A few services are provided under a contract awarded in December 2008 to Ostdeutsche Eisenbahn and operated as line OE60V.

From March 2009 to December 2014, three pairs of regional trains each day were operated between Dresden and Wrocław Główny by DB Regio.