It was designed in response to a Reich Air Ministry call for a multi-role army co-operation aircraft to replace the ageing Heinkel He 46.

The design emerged as a single-engine two-seat parasol wing machine with a fixed undercarriage.

The wings were built around two metal spars and had metal-covered leading edges and upper surfaces with fabric elsewhere.

[1] The first prototype, registered D-UBYN, was powered, like several other German aircraft of the time including the Messerschmitt Bf 109, by a Rolls-Royce Kestrel V-12-cylinder water-cooled engine; but the next prototype (D-UBAV) had a 460 kW (610 hp) Siemens Sh 22B 9-cylinder supercharged radial.

[1] There were at least three prototypes, followed by a small number of pre-production Siemens-powered Hs 122B-0 aircraft which entered service in 1936.