These are the fees and expenses you may pay when you buy and hold shares. You may qualify for sales charge discounts if you and your immediate family invest, or agree to invest in the future, at least $50,000 in DWS funds. More information about these and other discounts is available from your financial professional and in Choosing a Share Class (p. 40) and Purchase and Redemption of Shares in the fund's Statement of Additional Information (SAI) (p. II-15).

Shareholder Fees Caption [Text]

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SHAREHOLDER FEES (paid directly from your investment)

Operating Expenses Caption [Text]

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ANNUAL FUND OPERATING EXPENSES (expenses that you pay each year as a % of the value of your investment)

Portfolio Turnover [Heading]

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PORTFOLIO TURNOVER

Portfolio Turnover [Text Block]

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The fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or "turns over" its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover may indicate higher transaction costs and may mean higher taxes if you are investing in a taxable account. These costs are not reflected in annual fund operating expenses or in the expense example, and can affect the fund's performance.

Portfolio turnover rate for fiscal year 2011: 48%.

Portfolio Turnover, Rate

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48.00%

Expense Breakpoint Discounts [Text]

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You may qualify for sales charge discounts if you and your immediate family invest, or agree to invest in the future, at least $50,000 in DWS funds.

Expense Breakpoint, Minimum Investment Required [Amount]

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50,000

Expense Example [Heading]

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EXAMPLE

Expense Example Narrative [Text Block]

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This Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the fund with the cost of investing in other mutual funds. The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the fund for the time periods indicated and then redeem all of your shares at the end of those periods. The Example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the fund's operating expenses remain the same. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:

Expense Example, No Redemption, By Year, Caption [Text]

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You would pay the following expenses if you did not redeem your shares:

Expense Example Closing [Text Block]

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Class B converts to Class A after six years; the Example for Class B reflects Class A fees after the conversion.

Strategy [Heading]

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Principal Investment Strategy

Strategy Narrative [Text Block]

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Main investments. The fund normally invests at least 65% of total assets in equities, mainly common stocks of US companies. The fund generally focuses on established companies that are similar in size to the companies in the S&P 500^® Index (generally 500 of the largest companies in the US) or the Russell 1000^®Growth Index (generally those stocks among the 1,000 largest US companies that have above-average price-to-earnings ratios). As of December 31, 2011, the S&P 500^® Index had a median market capitalization of $11.15 billion and the Russell 1000^® Growth Index had a median market capitalization of $5.60 billion. Although the fund can invest in companies of any size, the fund intends to invest primarily in companies whose market capitalizations fall within the normal range of these indexes. The fund may also invest in other types of equity securities such as preferred stocks or convertible securities.

Management process. In choosing stocks, portfolio management begins by utilizing a proprietary quantitative model to rank stocks based on a number of factors including valuation and profitability. Portfolio management also applies fundamental techniques to seek to identify companies that display above-average earnings growth compared to other companies and that have strong product lines, effective management and leadership positions within core markets. The factors considered and models used by the portfolio managers may change over time.

Portfolio management will normally sell a security when it believes the potential risks have increased, its price is unlikely to go higher, its fundamental factors have changed, other investments offer better opportunities or in the course of adjusting the fund's emphasis on a given industry.

Securities Lending. The fund may lend securities (up to one-third of total assets) to approved institutions.

Risk [Heading]

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Main Risks

Risk Narrative [Text Block]

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There are several risk factors that could hurt the fund's performance, cause you to lose money or cause the fund's performance to trail that of other investments. The fund may not achieve its investment objective, and is not intended to be a complete investment program. An investment in the fund is not a deposit of a bank and is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or any other governmental agency.

Stock market risk. When stock prices fall, you should expect the value of your investment to fall as well. Stock prices can be hurt by poor management on the part of the stock's issuer, shrinking product demand and other business risks. These may affect single companies as well as groups of companies. In addition, movements in financial markets may adversely affect a stock's price, regardless of how well the company performs. To the extent the fund invests in a particular capitalization or market sector, the fund's performance may be proportionately affected by that segment's general performance.

Growth investing risk. As a category, growth stocks may underperform value stocks (and the stock market as a whole) over any period of time. Because the prices of growth stocks are based largely on the expectation of future earnings, growth stock prices can decline rapidly and significantly in reaction to negative news about such factors as earnings, the economy, political developments, or other news.

Focus risk. To the extent that the fund focuses its investments in particular industries, asset classes or sectors of the economy, any market price movements, regulatory or technological changes, or economic conditions affecting companies in those industries, asset classes or sectors will have a significant impact on the fund's performance. For example, consumer goods companies could be hurt by a rise in unemployment or technology companies could be hurt by such factors as market saturation, price competition and rapid obsolescence.

Security selection risk. The securities in the fund's portfolio may decline in value. Portfolio management could be wrong in its analysis of industries, companies, economic trends, the relative attractiveness of different securities or other matters.

Medium-sized company risk. Medium-sized company stocks tend to be more volatile than large company stocks. Medium-sized companies are less widely followed by stock analysts and less information about them is available to investors. Industry-wide reversals may have a greater impact on medium-sized companies, since they lack the financial resources of larger companies. Medium-sized company stocks are typically less liquid than large company stocks.

Small company risk. Small company stocks tend to be more volatile than medium-sized or large company stocks. Small companies are less widely followed by stock analysts and less information about them is available to investors. Industry-wide reversals may have a greater impact on small companies, since they may lack the financial resources of larger companies. Small company stocks are typically less liquid than large company stocks.

Foreign investment risk. The fund faces the risks inherent in foreign investing. Adverse political, economic or social developments could undermine the value of the fund's investments or prevent the fund from realizing their full value. Financial reporting standards for companies based in foreign markets differ from those in the US. Additionally, foreign securities markets generally are smaller and less liquid than US markets. To the extent that the fund invests in non-US dollar denominated foreign securities, changes in currency exchange rates may affect the US dollar value of foreign securities or the income or gain received on these securities.

Securities lending risk. Any decline in the value of a portfolio security that occurs while the security is out on loan is borne by the fund and will adversely affect performance. Also, there may be delays in recovery of securities loaned or even a loss of rights in the collateral should the borrower of the securities fail financially while holding the security.

Counterparty risk. A financial institution or other counterparty with whom the fund does business, or that underwrites, distributes or guarantees any investments or contracts that the fund owns or is otherwise exposed to, may decline in financial health and become unable to honor its commitments, which could cause losses for the fund or could delay the return or delivery of collateral or other assets to the fund.

Liquidity risk. In certain situations, it may be difficult or impossible to sell an investment in an orderly fashion at an acceptable price.

Pricing risk. If market conditions make it difficult to value some investments, the fund may value these investments using more subjective methods, such as fair value pricing. In such cases, the value determined for an investment could be different than the value realized upon such investment's sale. As a result, you could pay more than the market value when buying fund shares or receive less than the market value when selling fund shares.

Risk Lose Money [Text]

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There are several risk factors that could hurt the fund's performance, cause you to lose money or cause the fund's performance to trail that of other investments.

Risk Not Insured Depository Institution [Text]

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An investment in the fund is not a deposit of a bank and is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or any other governmental agency.

Bar Chart and Performance Table [Heading]

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Past Performance

Performance Narrative [Text Block]

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How a fund's returns vary from year to year can give an idea of its risk; so can comparing fund performance to overall market performance (as measured by an appropriate market index). Past performance may not indicate future results. All performance figures below assume that dividends were reinvested. For more recent performance figures, go to www.dws-investments.com (the Web site does not form a part of this prospectus) or call the phone number for your share class included in this prospectus.

Prior to December 31, 2011, the returns in the bar chart and the after-tax returns in the performance table below were shown for Class S shares. The bar chart and the after-tax returns below are shown for Class A shares because the shares now have 10 or more years of annual returns and are available to most investors.

For Class R shares, performance prior to its inception date is based on the historical performance of the fund's original share class (Class AARP), adjusted to reflect the higher expenses of Class R shares.

Performance Information Illustrates Variability of Returns [Text]

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How a fund's returns vary from year to year can give an idea of its risk; so can comparing fund performance to overall market performance (as measured by an appropriate market index).

Performance Availability Website Address [Text]

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www.dws-investments.com

Performance Past Does Not Indicate Future [Text]

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Past performance may not indicate future results.

Bar Chart [Heading]

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CALENDAR YEAR TOTAL RETURNS (%) (Class A)

Bar Chart Narrative [Text Block]

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These year-by-year returns do not include sales charges, and would be lower if they did. Returns for other classes were different and are not shown here.

Bar Chart Does Not Reflect Sales Loads [Text]

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These year-by-year returns do not include sales charges, and would be lower if they did.

Bar Chart Closing [Text Block]

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Best Quarter: 13.85%, Q2 2009

Worst Quarter: -21.28%, Q4 2008

Bar Chart, Reason Selected Class Different from Immediately Preceding Period [Text]

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Performance Table Heading

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Average Annual Total Returns
(For periods ended 12/31/2011 expressed as a %)

Performance Table Uses Highest Federal Rate

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Performance Table Not Relevant to Tax Deferred

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After-tax returns are not relevant to shares held in an IRA, 401(k) or other tax-advantaged investment plan.

Performance Table One Class of after Tax Shown [Text]

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After-tax returns (which are shown only for Class A and would be different for other classes)

Performance Table Narrative

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After-tax returns (which are shown only for Class A and would be different for other classes) reflect the historical highest individual federal income tax rates, but do not reflect any state or local taxes. Your actual after-tax returns may be different. After-tax returns are not relevant to shares held in an IRA, 401(k) or other tax-advantaged investment plan. Index comparisons for Institutional Class shares began on August 31, 2002.

DWS Capital Growth Fund

Investment Objective

Fees and Expenses of the Fund