Lufthansa started its journey back in 1926 as Deutsche Luft Hansa A.G.

was formed in Berlin

which, from 1933 onwards, was styled as Deutsche Lufthansa. DLH acted as Germany’s flag
carrier until all its services were suspended following the defeat of Nazi Germany.

To create a new national airline, on 6 January 1953, a company called Aktiengesellschaft für
Luftverkehrsbedarf (Luftag) was started in Cologne. Most of this newfound company’s working
members comprised of staff from the pre-war Lufthansa. However, as West Germany was yet to
be granted sovereignty over its airspace, the validity of the operations of the new airline was
unknown. Despite this, Luftag placed orders for four Convair CV-340s and four Lockheed L-
1049 Super Constellations in 1953 and also set up a maintenance base at Hamburg Airport in the
same year and on August 6, 1954, acquired the name and logo of Deutsche Lufthansa which was
under liquidation for DM 30,000 (equivalent to € 68000 today).

Lufthansa won the approval to start scheduled domestic flights on April 1, 1955 and international
flights on May 15, 1955. The international flights linked Germany to London, Paris, and Madrid
which was followed by Super Constellation flights to New York City from the first of June of the
same year, and across the South Atlantic from August 1956.

In August 1958, fifteen Lufthansa 1049Gs and 1649s left Germany each week to Canada and the
United States, three 1049Gs a week flew to South America, three flew to Tehran and one to
Baghdad.