It was founded in 1890 in Bremen with the set theorist Georg Cantor as first president.

Founding members included Georg Cantor, Felix Klein, Walther von Dyck, David Hilbert, Hermann Minkowski, Carl Runge, Rudolf Sturm, Hermann Schubert, and Heinrich Weber.

It also publishes a quarterly magazine for its membership the Mitteilungen der DMV.

[2] The annual meeting of the DMV is called the Jahrestagung; the DMV traditionally meets every four years together with the Austrian Mathematical Society (ÖMG) and every four years together with the Gesellschaft für Didaktik der Mathematik (GDM).

It sometimes organises its meetings jointly with other societies (e.g., 2014 with the Polish Mathematical Society, PTM, or 2016 with the Gesellschaft für Angewandte Mathematik und Mechanik, GAMM).