At the beginning of the century the Berlin city, ring and suburban railways had a need to replace the four-coupled locomotives with more powerful ones. The requirements here included to accelerate a 240-ton passenger train consisting of 14 cars between the stations to a speed of 60 km/h. At that time, those responsible still saw difficulties in meeting these requirements with electric traction. Thus, Wittfeld ordered powerful six-coupled tank locomotives. Since the axle load in Berlin permitted 17 tonnes instead of the 14 tonnes of the Vienna city railway, this was favorable to achieve the required performances.