[en] The ARGUS detector came into operation at the DORIS-II e⁺s^- storage ring at the end of 1982. Its two meter long drift chamber contains 5940 sense and 24588 field wires organized in uniform 18x18.8 mm² drift cells filling the whole volume. These cells form 36 layers, 18 of which provide stereo views. Each sense wire is equipped with a single hit TDC and ADC for coordinate and dE/dx measurements. The chamber is operated with propane to improve momentum and dE/dx resolution. The drift chamber design and initial performance are presented. With a very crude space-time relation approximation and without all the necessary corrections applied a spatial resolution of about 200 μm was obtained for half of the drift cell volume. Further corrections should improve this result. An intrinsic dE/dx resolution of 4.2% and an actual resolution of 5% were obtained for cosmic muons and also for Bhabha scattered electrons. An actual dE/dx resolution of 5.6% was obtained for pions from e⁺e^- annihilation data with almost no track selection. A relativistic rise of 30% was observed in good agreement with theory. The long-term stability is still to be investigated. (orig.)