The German Olympic Sports Confederation (DSOB) on Saturday voted unanimously to bid to host either the 2024 or 2028 Summer and Paralympic Games at a general meeting in Dresden.
All 456 members present voted in favour of starting the process to launch a bid with a decision on whether Hamburg or Berlin will be used as the host city due to be made at an extraordinary general meeting in March 2015.
A referendum will be held in the relevant city to allow the general public to say whether they want to host an Olympics, which is a pre-requisite for a bid.
An application must then be submitted to the International Olympic Committee by January 8 2016 at the latest and the host city for the 2024 Summer Games will be announced in 2017.
Should the DSOB fail in their 2024 bid, they would then re-submit an application to host the 2028 Summer Games.
Germany has not hosted an Olympics since tragedy-marred Munich Games in 1972 and their hopes of hosting the Winter Olympics were dashed when residents of the Bavarian capital voted against contesting the race for 2022 in a referendum in November 2013.