She was requisitioned by the Kriegsmarine in 1939, serving as a Vorpostenboot and a weather ship during World War II.

The ship was powered by a 6-cylinder four-stroke, single-cycle, single-action diesel engine which was built by the Großmotoren-Werke Hamburg-Mannheim GmbH, Hamburg.

She was built as yard number 558, being launched on 14 April 1925 and completed in June the same year.

[5] She was subsequently converted to a weather ship and was commissioned as WBS 3 Carl J. Busch On 15 September 1943, Carl J. Busch departed from Kiel, Germany for Tromsø and Hammerfest, Norway.

She sailed from Hammerfest on 15 October escorted by U-355, bound for West Spitsbergen, where a weather station was to be set up.

The ships sailed on 10 September for Nordaustlandet, Spitsbergen as part of Operation Haudegen.