In August 1870, Blitz and three other light vessels attacked the French blockade force in the Baltic Sea during the Franco-Prussian War, but they withdrew without either side scoring any hits.

The Camäleon-class gunboats came about as a result of a program to strengthen the Prussian Navy in the late 1850s in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Reichsflotte and in the midst of rising tensions with Denmark.

In 1859, Prince Regent Wilhelm approved a construction program for some fifty-two gunboats to be built over the next fifteen years, of which eight became the Camäleon class.

[2][3] Blitz was laid down at the Königliche Werft (Royal Dockyard) in Danzig on 26 July 1861; her name was already assigned on 23 May, two months before work began.

Later that year, the vessels entered the Black Sea; under the terms of the Treaty of Paris that had ended the Crimean War in 1856, Prussia was permitted to station warships in Sulina at the mouth of the Danube to enforce the peace.

At the time, the Danish fleet was far superior to the Prussian naval forces initially available, which allowed the Danes to blockade the German coast.

To assist the Prussians, the Austrian Navy sent Kommodore (Commodore) Wilhelm von Tegetthoff with the screw frigates Schwarzenberg and Radetzky to break the Danish blockade.

[8] On the morning of 9 May, Tegetthoff learned that a Danish squadron consisting of the steam frigates Niels Juel and Jylland and the corvette Hejmdal were patrolling off the island of Heligoland.

After Schwarzenberg caught fire, Tegetthoff broke off the action and escaped to the neutral waters around Heligoland, where the ships remained until early the next day.

Though the Danish squadron had won a tactical victory at Heligoland, the arrival of Austrian warships in the North Sea forced the Danes to withdraw their blockade.

[6] At the start of the Austro-Prussian War in June 1866, Blitz was mobilized for wartime service, though her reactivation was delayed by shortages of engine and boiler room personnel.

There, she joined a unit commanded by then-Korvettenkapitän (KK—Corvette Captain) Reinhold von Werner from his flagship, the ironclad turret ship Arminius.

Blitz made a second trip to Mytilene on 16 March; on the return legs of both voyages, she evacuated refugees to mainland Anatolia.

Blitz returned to Smyrna, but was sent to Chios on 4 December along with the frigate Hertha to assist the French corvette Roland, which had run aground on the island.

The Germans helped to lighten Roland until she could be pulled free; for their efforts, the French government awarded the Legion of Honor to Blitz's commander.

In July, Blitz became a fishery protection ship; though the duty was generally uneventful, in one case she had to fire a warning shot toward a British fishing vessel to force the crew to recognize German sovereignty.

While Blitz was patrolling in the northern North Sea on 29 June, one of her masts broke, forcing her to put into Aberdeen, Scotland for repairs.

[22] Blitz was stricken from the naval register on 28 December 1876 and converted into a coal storage hulk, though she served in this capacity for less than two years before being broken up for scrap in 1878, at the now-Kaiserliche Werft (Imperial Shipyard) in Danzig.