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The saga of the BV 155 began at Messerschmitt in the spring of 1942. At that time, it was known under the designation of Me 155, and was a company proposal for a carrier-based single-seat fighter. The Me 155 was intended to be based aboard the aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin, then under construction. In the interest of economy and simplicity, the Me 155 was to use as many Messerschmitt Bf 109 components as possible, being basically a navalized version of the earlier Messerschmitt fighter.

In August 1943, the Technische Amt decided that Messerschmitt was over-committed, and they decided to transfer the work on the design to Blohm & Voss. After some initial study, the Blohm & Voss design team deemed that the existing Messerschmitt design had too many weaknesses. Several months of argument and finger-pointing between the Messerschmitt transition team and the Blohm & Voss designers followed. Friction between the two teams got steadily worse. In the event, no meeting of the minds was possible, and the Technische Amt eventually decided to throw Messerschmitt off the project entirely, and turn it entirely over to Blohm & Voss.

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