was ordered under the contract name "
Ersatz ", and was laid down at the
Blohm & Voss shipyard in
Hamburg in August 1916. Named for the earlier cruiser that was sunk at the
Battle of Más a Tierra in March 1915, the new cruiser was launched on 25 April 1917, after which
fitting-out work commenced. She was commissioned into active service on 28 March 1918 to begin
sea trials. She was the last major warship to enter service with the imperial fleet, and the last light cruiser to be completed. The ship's first captain was (Corvette Captain)
Prince Adalbert, the son of
Kaiser Wilhelm II. After the completion of her trials in August, joined the reconnaissance screen for the High Seas Fleet. The ship was assigned to
II Scouting Group, alongside the cruisers , , , , and . Later that month, joined a minelaying operation to the west of the mouth of the
Ems, but she was torpedoed and had to return to port with a torpedo boat as escort. In October 1918, and the rest of II Scouting Group were to lead a
final attack on the British navy. , , , and were to attack merchant shipping in the
Thames estuary while the rest of the Group were to bombard targets in
Flanders, to draw out the British
Grand Fleet. Scheer intended to inflict as much damage as possible on the British navy, in order to secure a better bargaining position for Germany, whatever the cost to the fleet. On the morning of 29 October 1918, the order was given to sail from Wilhelmshaven the following day. Starting on the night of 29 October, sailors on and then on several other battleships
mutinied. The unrest ultimately forced Hipper and Scheer to cancel the operation. During the sailors' revolt, was ordered to steam to
Eckernförde to serve as a relay to Kiel. Communications had been disrupted by major unrest there. The battleship laid in s path, and her unruly crew refused to move out of s way; aimed one of her gun turrets at , but then her crew backed down and let leave the port. The ship then went to
Swinemünde, where she was decommissioned on 7 November. Her crew partially scuttled her following reports that mutinous ships were en route to attack the cruisers stationed there. After these proved false, was re-floated and returned to seaworthy condition. This involved removing the ammunition for all of the guns and allowing them to air-dry. Following the capitulation of Germany on 11 November, most of the High Seas Fleet's ships, under the command of Rear Admiral
Ludwig von Reuter, were interned in the British naval base in Scapa Flow. was among the ships interned, but owing to the ship's poor condition following the naval mutiny, she was not able to steam with the rest of the fleet in November. arrived on 6 December, leaking badly. The fleet remained in captivity during the negotiations that ultimately produced the
Versailles Treaty. Reuter believed that the British intended to seize the German ships on 21 June 1919, which was the deadline for Germany to have signed the peace treaty. Unaware that the deadline had been extended to the 23rd, Reuter ordered the ships to be sunk at the next opportunity. On the morning of 21 June, the British fleet left Scapa Flow to conduct training maneuvers, and at 11:20 Reuter transmitted the order to his ships. began to sink at 13:50, and she sank before British sailors could board the ship or tow her to shallow water. She was never raised for salvage like many of the other wrecks, and instead salvage rights to the ship and her sister were sold off in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Some work was carried out to remove parts of their hulls while still submerged, but they were never raised. Salvage rights for the two cruisers expired on 17 September 1985, and their remains were sold to the Orkney Islands Council for 1
pound on 3 November 1986. Her wreck was declared a
scheduled monument on 23 May 2001. The wreck lies to this day on the port side at the bottom of Scapa Flow to the south east of the island of Cava, in a depth of . The upper decks have been badly damaged and the
weather deck has separated from the hull, exposing her internal structure. The main guns are buried in mud. In 2017, marine archaeologists from the Orkney Research Center for Archaeology conducted extensive surveys of and nine other wrecks in the area, including six other German and three British warships. The archaeologists mapped the wrecks with sonar and examined them with
remotely operated underwater vehicles as part of an effort to determine how the wrecks are deteriorating. The wreck lies between and remains a popular site for recreational scuba diving. == Notes ==