The design was based on the proven and robust Dutch Kortenaer class but used a different propulsion system and hangar lay-out.

The ships were built for anti-submarine warfare as a primary task although they were not fitted with towed array sonars.

This class of ship was one of the last to be constructed under post-war displacement limitations imposed by the WEU on West Germany.

Karlsruhe successfully assisted an Egyptian freighter repel pirates on 25 December 2008 in the Gulf of Aden.

[2] In December 2015 Augsburg joined the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle in the south-eastern Mediterranean Sea to go to the Arabian Sea as part of the intervention against ISIS in the Syrian Civil War.