At the beginning of the war Germany was using the prewar 7.7cm Feldkanone 96 n.A. field guns on improvised mounts for anti-aircraft work.

In September 1915, German anti-aircraft crews accounted for approximately twenty-five percent of all allied aircraft shot down on the Western Front.

By the fall of 1917, the German army began introducing more motorized flak units (Kraftwagenflak or K-flak) consisting of a 7.7mm gun mounted on the bed of an open truck.
The mobility of these guns allowed for more rapid deployment along the frontlines.
In fact, the primary mission of these guns involved the combating of low-flying allied aircraft near the front.

German motorized flak guns increased from thirty-eight in February 1916 to fifty-six by May 1916. By the end of the war, the Germans had 800 motorized flak guns. Most were manufactured by two factories, Krupp of Essen and Rheinmetall-Borsig.