SMS Königsberg (1915)

SMS Königsberg was the lead ship of the Königsberg class of light cruisers, built for the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) during World War I. She took the name of the earlier Königsberg, which had been destroyed during the Battle of Rufiji Delta in 1915. The new ship was laid down in 1914 at the AG Weser shipyard, launched in December 1915, and commissioned into the High Seas Fleet in August 1916. Armed with eight 15 cm SK L/45 guns, the ship had a top speed of 27.5 kn (50.9 km/h; 31.6 mph).

Königsberg saw action with the II Scouting Group; in September 1917 she participated in Operation Albion, a large amphibious operation against the Baltic islands in the Gulf of Riga. Two months later, she was attacked by British battlecruisers in the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight. She was hit by the battlecruiser HMS Repulse, which caused a large fire and reduced her speed significantly. She escaped behind the cover of two German battleships, however. She was to have taken part in a sortie by the entire High Seas Fleet to attack the British Grand Fleet in the final days of the war, but unrest broke out that forced the cancellation of the plan. The ship carried Rear Admiral Hugo Meurer to Scapa Flow to negotiate the plan for interning the High Seas Fleet. Königsberg was not interned, however, so she escaped the scuttling of the German fleet and was instead ceded to France as a war prize. She was renamed Metz and served with the French Navy until 1933, before being scrapped in 1936.