In the 1990s she spent a short period under the Ukrainian flag and a prolonged stay in British ports due to lack of funds for necessary repairs.

The German school ship Niobe, a three-masted barque, capsized on 26 July 1932 in the Baltic Sea near Fehmarn due to a sudden squall, killing 69.

The Prussian State Mint issued a Niobe memorial coin to help raise money for a replacement ship, and soon earned 200,000 Reichsmarks towards the effort.

Dr Wilhelm Süchting's design for Blohm+Voss, who had also built the German training ship, Prinzess Eitel Friedrich, won the bid, and construction began at their yard in Hamburg on 2 December 1932.

The launching was presided by Admiral Erich Raeder, and christened by Marie Fröhlich of the "German Woman's Fleet Association", with the Karlsruhe on station as a guard of honor.

More than 300 tons of steel ballast in the keel give her a righting moment large enough to bring her back in the upright position even when she heels over to nearly a 90°.

On 1 May 1945, the crew scuttled her in shallow waters off Rügen in an attempt to avoid her capture by the Soviets, who already had fired at her for 45 minutes with tanks.

The Soviets ordered Stralsund-based company "B. Staude Schiffsbergung" to raise and salvage her, which after some difficulties was done in 1947 at a cost of 800,000 Reichsmark (equivalent to 3 million 2021 euros).

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Tovarishch sailed under the Ukrainian flag (home port Kherson) until 1993, when she needed repairs and was deactivated for lack of funds.

[5] In August 1999, with funding secured for her restoration, the ship was transported to Wilhelmshaven, where she stayed in dock for four years until finally transferred to Stralsund in 2003.

After some repairs in Wilhelmshaven and Bremerhaven, she was sailed by her German crew including the Captain together with American sailors to her new home port of New London, Connecticut.

She was confiscated by the United States after World War II and then sold to Brazil, where she sailed as a school ship under the name Guanabara.

Named after the Hitler Youth martyr Herbert Norkus, another ship of the Gorch Fock design—with the same dimensions as Horst Wessel—was begun at the Blohm & Voss shipyard.

A number of similar ships have been built by the Astilleros Celaya S.A. shipyard in Bilbao for Latin American Navies, possibly following the Blohm & Voss design[citation needed].

The hulls and rigging of these ships are very similar, the main differences are in the superstructure and they also have larger tanks for both diesel and water, and they are also longer[citation needed].