German airline organized in Cologne, W.Ger., on Jan. 6, 1953, jointly by the federal government, the German National Railway, and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia; later it accepted private investors. It was the successor to Deutsche Luft Hansa, or DLH, which was founded in 1926, suspended service at war's end in 1945, and was formally liquidated in 1951. The new airline, initially called Aktiengesellschaft für Luftverkehrsbedarf, or Luftag, adopted the old name, run together, in 1954; but, whereas the old company had been familiarly called DLH, the new one was popularly called Lufthansa.

DLH, the greatest airline in prewar Europe, had resulted from the merger of Deutscher Aero Lloyd (formed 1924) and Junkers Luftverkehr (formed 1921), which together controlled a large network of lines throughout Germany and central Europe, with extensions to London, Moscow, Stockholm, Helsinki, Budapest, and the Persian Gulf. By 1931 DLH was serving Paris, Barcelona, Rome, and Oslo and accounted for a third of all passenger travel and air transport in Europe. The German-built Junkers Ju 52/3m, used by other airlines as well as by DLH, became the most familiar aircraft in European airports, until it was gradually surpassed by American-made airliners in the late 1930s. In 1934 DLH began the world's first scheduled transoceanic flights—between Germany and South America—but its other experiments in transatlantic and trans-Asian routes were cut short by the outbreak of World War II.

Lufthansa, only two months after inaugurating scheduled services within West Germany in April 1955, began transatlantic flights to New York City. In the same year, scheduled service began to Paris, London, Madrid, and Lisbon, and special flights began to Moscow. In 1956 the first flights were made to Montreal, Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, Baghdad, and Tehrān (discontinued in 1981), followed by initial flights to India in 1958 and Bangkok in 1959. By the late 20th century the vast network of Lufthansa radiated from Frankfurt am Main to such distant cities as Santiago de Chile, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Anchorage, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Sydney, and Johannesburg, as well as to scores of airports throughout Europe and the Middle East.