She and her sister ships were ordered under the 1898 Naval Law that required new cruisers be built to replace obsolete vessels in the fleet.

Named for the city of Hamburg, the ship was armed with a main battery of ten 10.5 cm (4.1 in) guns and had a top speed of 22 knots (41 km/h; 25 mph).

Hamburg served with the reconnaissance force of the main fleet for the majority of her early career, and during this period, she frequently escorted Hohenzollern, the yacht of Kaiser Wilhelm II.

She was present at the Battle of Jutland on 31 May – 1 June 1916, where she was damaged in clashes with British light forces as the German fleet withdrew in the night.

She served in that capacity in Kiel until early 1944, when the Nazi-era Kriegsmarine moved her to Hamburg to be broken up; British bombers sank the ship in April before she could be dismantled.

The first tranche of vessels to fulfill this requirement, the Gazelle class, were designed to serve both as fleet scouts and as station ships in Germany's colonial empire.

Hamburg carried up to 860 t (850 long tons) of coal, which gave her a range of 4,270 nautical miles (7,910 km; 4,910 mi) at 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph).

She thereafter operated with the yacht for the following three months, beginning with a voyage from Kiel to Hamburg, where Wilhelm II embarked upon Hohenzollern for a sailing regatta.

[6] Beginning on 28 September, Hamburg joined the Reconnaissance Unit for the main fleet, taking the place of the light cruiser Niobe.

The ship took part in the peacetime routine of unit and fleet exercises in 1905, interrupted by another voyage in company with Wilhelm II aboard Hohenzollern to Helgoland in March and another to Pillau and Glücksburg in October.

But the turbine-powered cruiser proved to have trouble completing her initial testing, which forced Hamburg to remain in service for another year.

From there, they proceeded into the northern Baltic to Finnish waters, where they met Wilhelm's cousin, Tsar Nicholas of Russia aboard his own yacht.

She continued to operate in company with Hohenzollern for the next month, including during a sailing regatta in early July, the inauguration of the joint German and Swedish passenger ferry service between Sassnitz and Trelleborg.

Another summer cruise to Norway followed from 18 July to 3 August, and upon their return to German waters, Hamburg was detached to resume fleet service.

[14][15] Hamburg also operated with the High Seas Fleet during this period, generally in company with the light cruisers of IV Scouting Group.

At 08:02, Roon signaled the two light cruisers and ordered them to abandon the pursuit and retreat along with the rest of the High Seas Fleet.

Führer der Torpedoboote (2nd Commander of Torpedo Boats), Kommodore (Commodore) Karl von Restorff had hoisted his flag aboard Hamburg.

Hamburg and IV Scouting Group were not heavily engaged during the early phases of the battle, but around 21:30, they encountered the British 3rd Light Cruiser Squadron (3rd LCS).

[21][18] The German experience at Jutland had demonstrated that older vessels, particularly the pre-dreadnought battleships of II Battle Squadron and cruisers like Hamburg possessed inferior defensive characteristics and were no longer suited to offensive operations.

Hamburg was not interned in Scapa Flow under the terms of the armistice that ended the fighting, and she remained in Wilhelmshaven during the peace negotiations that ultimately produced the Treaty of Versailles.

[23] Hamburg remained out of service into 1920; instability in Germany during and after the Revolution of 1918–1919 culminated in the Kapp Putsch of March 1920, after which the new German navy, the Reichsmarine, began to recommission the old vessels that it was permitted to retain under the Versailles Treaty.

[24] In July 1921, Hamburg took part in fleet training exercises with the battleship Hannover and the light cruiser Medusa, along with I and II Flotillas.

Once the mine-clearing work was completed, the ships returned to Germany, stopping in several Norwegian ports, including Vardø, Hammerfest, Tromsø, Ålesund, and Bergen.

The rest of the year passed fairly uneventfully, with the only notable occurrences being a visit to Odda, Norway and the annual fleet maneuvers in August and September.

Continued unrest in Weimar Germany necessitated the deployment of Hamburg and two torpedo boats to the cruiser's namesake city in October.

Hamburg served as the flagship of KzS Adolf Pfeiffer, the commander of light naval forces in the North Sea.

At the same time, Hamburg was transferred to the Marinestation der Ostsee (Baltic Sea Naval Station), based in Kiel.

Preparations began for a major training cruise that would circumnavigate the Earth; Carl Wilhelm Petersen, the mayor of Hamburg, presented the city's flag to the cruiser during ceremonies on 14 February 1926.

From there, Hamburg passed through the English Channel into the Atlantic; as she steamed south, she made port calls in Pontevedra, Spain, Funchal, Portugal, and Las Palmas in the Canary Islands.

After crossing the Indian Ocean, she stopped in Colombo, British Ceylon, and entered the Red Sea, thereafter passing through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean.