It was a German copy of the French Nieuport 17 that was obsolete by the time it was available in numbers, so that it served mainly as an advanced trainer.

The most important difference from the Nieuport 17 was the powerplant - instead of the Le Rhone 9J of the Nieuport (licensed, as with the Oberursel Ur.II; and un-licensed versions of which were actually available in Germany at the time), Siemens-Schukert chose to use their own 110 hp (82 kW) Siemens-Halske Sh.I rotary engine - in which the cylinders, still attached to the propeller, rotated at 900 rpm in one direction, with the crankshaft and internals rotating in the opposite direction at the same rate: producing an effective 1800 rpm.

An order for 150 aircraft for the Luftstreitkräfte was placed on 25 November 1916,[1] but initial deliveries were slow, due to production difficulties with the complicated geared engines,[2] so that the type was not available for service until well into 1917, by which time many Jagdstaffeln were already equipped with the very much superior Albatros D.III.

[1] Late production models were fitted with modified tailskids, and had large pointed spinners on their propellers.

A single D.Ia was produced with a greater wing area - two examples of the D.Ib had a higher compression version of the Siemens-Halske Sh.I.