Confederation of German Employers' Associations

The employers' organisation were formed in response to the trade unions. The German Book Printers' Association was founded as early as 1869 as the first and oldest employers' association. In April 1904, the main office of the German employers' associations was founded with its headquarters in Berlin and in 1913 the "Federation of German Employers' Associations" was established. This was the result of a merger of two rival umbrella organisations, the Hauptstelle deutscher Arbeitgeberverbände (founded in 1904 to represent heavy industry employers) and the Verein deutscher Arbeitgeberverbände (founded in 1904 to represent employers in the manufacturing industry).

By 1920, companies with 8 million employees were already organised in employers' associations. After the NSDAP seized power, the employers' organisations disbanded under pressure from the National Socialists. After the Second World War, employers' organisations remained banned in the Soviet occupation zone and the GDR. In the western sectors, they continued the traditions of the time before 1933. In 1947, the Employers' Association of the Western Zone was formed, which became the Central Secretariat of the Employers of the United Economic Area in 1948. Even before the Basic Law came into force, the constitutive meeting of the social policy working group of the employers' associations of the united economic area, based in Wiesbaden, was held in January 1949 by representatives of 23 specialised and eight interdisciplinary employers' associations. After the associations in the former French occupation zone had also joined at the end of 1949, the name "Confederation of German Employers' Associations" was adopted in November 1950.

The BDA has persistently opposed codetermination, wherein workers also serve in managerial functions along with the ownership.

With the establishment of association structures based on the West German model in the new federal states in 1990, the BDA established itself as an all-German employers' association. In 1999, the BDA followed the government's move to Berlin and relocated to the Spree. There it shares the Haus der Deutschen Wirtschaft at Breite Straße 29 with the Federation of German Industries and the Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce.