The keel was laid at JW Klawitter's works there on 24 August 1850, with the copper mined near Berlin, the wood for the hull coming from the outskirts of Danzig and the iron imported from England.

In the spring of 1856, a squadron under the leadership of Prince Adalbert, including the Danzig as flagship, the Thetis, the Amazone, the Mercur and the Frauenlob, sailed in the Atlantic Ocean to practise.

This expedition lead to the battle of Tres Forcas, which failed both on military as political terms, resulting in the death of seven crew members as well as 22 wounded, including the then 16-year old (later Admiral) Eduard von Knorr.

She was therefore only occasionally in service from 1859 to 1860 and was finally struck from the navy list on 1 September 1862, especially since paddle steamers like her were now technically obsolete compared to steam screw.

[1] She was the key actor in the Naval Battle of Miyako Bay, in which, after a failed attempt to board and overtake the Kōtetsu, she was forced to flee ahead of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

[1] In the late Meiji Era, Arai Ikunosuke, once the Navy Minister of the Republic of Ezo, wrote an extensive article on the Kaiten in the historical journal "Kyū Bakufu".