The Bussard class of unprotected cruisers were built for the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) in the late 1880s and early 1890s.

Designed for service in Germany's colonial empire, the class emphasized a long-range cruising radius and relatively heavy armament; they were also the last cruisers in the Kaiserliche Marine to be equipped with an auxiliary sailing rig.

Cormoran participated in the seizure of the Jiaozhou Bay Leased Territory in China in 1897, and Falke was involved in the Venezuela Crisis of 1902–03.

Geier briefly operated against British shipping in the Pacific before having to put into Hawaii for internment by the then-neutral United States.

After the United States entered the war in April 1917, she was seized and commissioned into the US Navy as USS Schurz; she served as an escort until she was accidentally sunk following a collision with a freighter in June 1918.

Through the 1870s and early 1880s, Germany built two types of cruising vessels: small, fast avisos suitable for service as fleet scouts and larger, long-ranged screw corvettes capable of patrolling the German colonial empire.

General Leo von Caprivi, the Chief of the Imperial Admiralty, sought to modernize Germany's cruiser force.

The ships were good sea boats, but they rolled badly and the sponsons for the main guns caused severe vibration.

Since Geier was laid down after the other five ships entered service, she was redesigned slightly to discard the sponsons, and so she did not suffer from bad vibration.

[5] The first ship was armed with a main battery of eight 10.5 cm K L/35 guns in single pedestal mounts, supplied with 800 rounds of ammunition in total.

[4][5] All six ships of the class spent the majority of their careers abroad, primarily in Germany's colonial possessions in Africa and the Pacific.

Seeadler visited the United States in March 1893, along with the protected cruiser Kaiserin Augusta, for the belated celebrations for the 400th anniversary of Columbus's crossing of the Atlantic.

[7] In July of that year, while assigned to the East Asia Division, Bussard and Falke assisted in the suppression of Mata'afa Iosefo's revolt in Samoa, along with a British corvette.

[9] In November 1897, Cormoran took part in the seizure of the Jiaozhou Bay Leased Territory in the Shandong Peninsula in Qing China.

[15] Both Bussard and Falke were stricken from the naval register on 25 October 1912 and broken up the following year, at Hamburg and the Kaiserliche Werft in Danzig, respectively.

After the United States declared war on Germany on 6 April 1917, she was seized and commissioned as USS Schurz for use as an escort vessel.