SMS Königsberg was the lead ship of her class of light cruisers built by the Imperial German Navy. She was laid down in early 1905, launched in December 1905, and completed by June 1906. Her sisters included Stettin, Stuttgart, and Nürnberg. The ship was armed with a main battery of ten guns and had a top speed of . After her commissioning, Königsberg escorted Kaiser Wilhelm II on a state visit to Britain. In April 1914, the ship was sent on what was to have been a two-year deployment to German East Africa, but this was interrupted by the outbreak of World War I in August of that year.