The line was opened on 22 March 1856 by the Thuringian Railway Company (German: Thüringische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft) and is one of the oldest railways in Germany. At that time it started in the Thüringer Bahnhof (Thuringian station) in Leipzig, which was on the eastern edge of the site of the Leipzig Hauptbahnhof (central station), which opened in 1913. The line quickly developed into one of the busiest lines in central Germany.
The line was electrified on 2 November 1942, but four years later in 1946 the electrical equipment was taken down and moved to the Soviet Union as reparations for World War II. In 1964 it was re-electrified.