After returning to Germany in mid-1901, she served with I Scouting Group and the main fleet until late 1902, when she was reduced to a gunnery training ship, though boiler problems forced a more thorough reconstruction that lasted from 1903 to 1910.

Following the outbreak of World War I in July 1914, Hela was deployed to the patrol line guarding the German Bight.

Despite the fact that Hela sank in less than half an hour, all of her crew, save two men, were rescued by a German U-boat and patrol boat.

Of these, the last four vessels, comprising the Wacht and Meteor classes, had proved to be significant disappointments in service, owing to their poor seaworthiness and insufficient speed.

German designers incorporated the best aspects of Hela's design—primarily a high top speed and an armor deck—with those of their contemporary unprotected cruisers of the Bussard class—namely, a heavy armament and long cruising radius.

Her hull was constructed with transverse and longitudinal steel frames, which contained twenty-two watertight compartments above the armored deck and ten below.

Hela was very seaworthy, but she rolled badly (having a metacentric height of 0.775 m (2 ft 6.5 in)) and tended to ship a significant amount of water in a head sea because she was slightly bow-heavy.

The vessel's internal subdivision was improved with eight additional watertight compartments above the waterline and an extension of the double bottom to cover thirty-nine percent of the hull.

Coal storage was increased to 412 long tons (419 t), which permitted a cruising radius of 3,000 nautical miles (5,600 km; 3,500 mi) at a speed of 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph).

She was launched on 28 March 1895 and at the ceremony, Vizeadmiral (Vice Admiral) Victor Valois, the chief of the Marinestation der Nordsee (North Sea Naval Station) christened the ship.

The ship was commissioned for sea trials on 3 May, initially under the command of Korvettenkapitän (KK—Corvette Captain) Johannes Stein, though he was replaced by Kapitänleutnant (KL—Captain Lieutenant) Carl Schönfelder in August.

These duties were interrupted beginning on 14 June when Hela was chosen to escort Kaiser Wilhelm II aboard his yacht Hohenzollern for sailing regattas in Germany and then a cruise to Norwegian waters in July that included a stop in Hardangerfjord.

She again escorted Hohenzollern with Wilhelm II and his wife Augusta Victoria aboard, along with the protected cruiser Hertha, for a voyage to the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

While passing through the English Channel, the ships stopped in Dover, Great Britain, to represent Germany at a celebration for Queen Victoria's 80th birthday on 1 May.

Her routine was interrupted by events in Qing China, where on 20 June, during the Boxer Uprising, the German ambassador, Clemens von Ketteler, was murdered by Chinese nationalists.

Those soldiers who were in China at the time were too few in number to defeat the Boxers; in Beijing there was a force of slightly more than 400 officers and infantry from the armies of the eight European powers.

Hela was assigned to the naval expedition on 4 July, which included the four Brandenburg-class battleships, sent to China to reinforce the German squadron there.

She contributed a landing party consisting of four officers and seventy-four men to participate in the assault on Chinese fortifications at the Shanhai Pass.

[2] After returning from China, Hela immediately participated in the annual fleet maneuvers, serving for the duration with I Scouting Group from 26 August to 19 September.

Hela returned to service with the main fleet in 1902, and while on a cruise in the Atlantic in May, she was detached to escort the light cruiser Amazone, which had been damaged off the Sevenstones Lightship.

By this time, the German naval command had decided that Hela was too weakly-armed to be useful as a fleet scout, and so she was sent to the Kaiserliche Werft in Kiel on 16 October to be modernized for use as a training ship for light guns.

The work was completed on 21 December and she was recommissioned for this duty on 31 January 1903, but the poor condition of the ship's boilers required further modifications, which were carried out at the Kaiserliche Werft in Danzig beginning on 25 April.

[14] Some ship location reports in the German archives in the Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv (German Federal Military Archive) indicate that Hela was in service with I Scouting Group from June to September 1903, but the naval historians Hans Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, and Hans-Otto Steinmetz have been unable to locate any official records of her commissioning or decommissioning during this period, nor of who commanded the vessel during this time.

According to the location reports, the vessel was to have ended this period in Wilhelmshaven, but no records follow for the transfer to Danzig, where it is definitively known that the ship was reconstructed.

[15] Following the start of World War I in July 1914, Hela was brought back to active duty and assigned to IV Scouting Group.

[9][16] On 28 August, British cruisers and destroyers from the Harwich Force surprised and attacked the German patrol line, resulting in the Battle of Helgoland Bight.

While en route, the ship received a contradictory report that stated that the British vessels were retreating, leading now Fregattenkapitän (Frigate Captain) Wolfram to reverse course and return to his assigned location.

Later that night, she regrouped with the cruisers Kolberg and München to provide cover for the remaining torpedo boats and reestablish the Bight patrol line.

[17][18] Two weeks later, on the morning of 13 September, Hela was attacked 6 nautical miles (11 km; 6.9 mi) southwest of Helgoland by the British submarine HMS E9 under command of the future Admiral Max Horton.

[9][21] Despite the speed with which the ship sank, her entire crew, with the exception of two sailors, were rescued from the sea by the U-boat U-18 and one of the coastal patrol vessels.