SMS Hertha was a protected cruiser of the Victoria Louise class,[a] built for the German Imperial Navy (Kaiserliche Marine) in the 1890s.

The ship's first major operation was a cruise to the Mediterranean Sea to escort Kaiser Wilhelm II; while there, Hertha received orders to join the East Asia Squadron.

Her crew saw significant action during the Boxer Uprising in 1900; Hertha contributed landing parties to the Seymour Expedition and to the force that captured the Taku Forts.

The experience of Japanese cruisers during the contemporaneous First Sino-Japanese War showed the benefit of larger 21 cm (8.3 in) guns, which were adopted for the main battery of the Victoria Louise class.

[11] The still unfinished ship was then moved to the Kaiserliche Werft (Imperial Shipyard) in Kiel for fitting-out work, and while there, she was lightly rammed by the ironclad Baden.

The ship's initial testing revealed problems with her boilers, but she nevertheless was sent with the aviso Hela to escort Kaiser Wilhelm II aboard his yacht Hohenzollern on a voyage to the Mediterranean Sea.

[6][12] Hertha got underway from Kiel on 18 September, stopped in Gibraltar, and arrived in Venice, Italy, on 4 October, where she met Hohenzollern and Hela.

While in Beirut on 11 November, the unit was disbanded and Hertha was assigned to relieve the old ironclad Oldenburg in the International Squadron that had been assembled in response to the Cretan Revolt.

But Hertha's boilers had suffered serious damage during the voyage, owing to design defects, and she was instead forced to go to Genoa, Italy, on 14 November at low speed for repairs.

Ansaldo & C. shipyard for repairs; while the work was ongoing, Hertha received orders to sail for the East Asia Squadron once she was ready for service again.

[13] After completing repairs, Hertha briefly conducted trials to ensure that her propulsion system was in working order before departing for East Asia on 11 April 1899.

She stopped in Singapore on 21 May and arrived at Qingdao in the Jiaozhou Bay Leased Territory, Germany's colonial possession in China, on 8 June.

At the same time, Konteradmiral (KAdm—Rear Admiral) Ernst Fritze, the deputy commander of the East Asia Squadron, temporarily made Hertha his flagship.

Bendemann ordered his squadron, less Irene, which was to remain behind to guard Qingdao, to meet the ships of the British China Station off Taku at the mouth of the Hai River.

The two admirals did not initially agree on a course of action, owing to the lack of information about the general situation, since the telegraph line to the embassies in Beijing had been cut.

[17][18] Following the failure of Seymour's expedition, the Eight Nation Alliance gathered forces from British India, French Indochina, the Philippines, eastern Russia, and Japan to make another attempt to march on Beijing by mid-August.

Hertha and Hansa contributed 150 and 200 men, respectively, to the force, which arrived in Beijing on 18 August, having met light Chinese resistance on the way.

On 21 October, Fürst Bismarck went into dry dock in Hong Kong for periodic maintenance and Bendemann temporarily returned to Hertha.

The cruiser then embarked on a tour of the Dutch East Indies that lasted into 1902; she stopped in Singapore on 19 February, where VAdm Richard Geissler came aboard to replace Bendemann as the squadron commander.

The work was completed by early 1908, and she was recommissioned under the command of KzS Hugo Louran on 7 April for service as a training ship for naval cadets and apprentice seamen.

She visited ports in Norway, Scotland, and Ireland before steaming south to the Mediterranean Sea, stopping in Funchal, Madeira, and Las Palmas in the Canary Islands on the way.

Both cruisers anchored off Corfu the next day; Hertha began the voyage back to Germany on 21 January and arrived in Kiel on 15 March.

[25] Hertha thereafter cruised in the Caribbean Sea, which included a stop in Kingston, Jamaica, from 9 to 11 January 1910, where she assisted the HAPAG steamship SS Prinz Joachim von Preussen, which had run aground there.

A short cruise in the Baltic followed, which included a stop in Stockholm, Sweden, after which Hertha visited Norway and Scotland before returning to Wilhelmshaven, Germany.

While in Funchal, Natzmer assisted the captain of the steamer SS Lotte Menzel by arresting several sailors who had been involved in a mutiny and then transferring them to another vessel that carried them back to Germany.

She then crossed the North Sea to Edinburgh, Scotland, where she stayed from 22 to 25 July; the ship was the last German vessel to visit a British port before the start of World War I.

[27] After returning to Germany in late July, Hertha had begun preparations for the annual training cruise, but these were interrupted by the outbreak of war at the end of the month.

She joined her sister Vineta and the armored cruiser Friedrich Carl for a sweep into the eastern Baltic from 24 to 26 October; the commander of V Scouting Group, KAdm Gisberth Jasper, temporarily made Hertha is flagship for the operation.

The Germans' intention was to penetrate as far as the Gulf of Finland, and while ships encountered no opposition, reports of enemy submarines led Jasper to cancel the operation while off Lyserort.

[9][28] Following Germany's defeat in November 1918, Hertha was towed back to Kiel, where she was stricken from the naval register on 6 December 1919 and sold to ship-breakers in Audorf-Rendsburg.