SMS Kolberg[a] was a light cruiser of the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) during the First World War, the lead ship of her class.

Kolberg saw action in several engagements with the British during the war, including the raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby in December 1914 and the Battle of Dogger Bank the following month.

The primary objective during their design process was to increase speed over the earlier vessels; this required a longer hull to fit an expanded propulsion system.

The ship carried a pair of pole masts with platforms for searchlights, one directly aft of the conning tower, and the other closer to her stern.

[2] Her propulsion system consisted of two sets of Melms & Pfenniger steam turbines driving four 2.25-meter (7 ft 5 in) screw propellers.

On 13 June, Kolberg was finally pronounced ready for service; the following day, her first active duty commander Fregattenkapitän (Frigate Captain) Paul Heinrich came aboard the ship.

[4][5] On 15 June, Kolberg steamed from Danzig to Kiel, where she joined the reconnaissance forces of the High Seas Fleet, taking the place of the light cruiser Königsberg.

She thereafter was ordered to accompany Kaiser Wilhelm's yacht Hohenzollern II to a sailing regatta held in the mouth of the Elbe and then for a visit to Bergen and Balestrand, Norway.

After the conclusion of the exercises in September, Kolberg took part in a naval review held off Swinemünde during a visit of the Austro-Hungarian crown prince, Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

On 17–18 August, Kolberg and the light cruisers Strassburg and Stralsund went on a patrol out to the Broad Fourteens but encountered no British vessels.

Kolberg was stationed in the mouth of the Ems river on the morning of 28 August, when the sound of distant gunfire alerted the crew to the Battle of Helgoland Bight, then underway.

She escorted Nautilus again on 16–18 October to lay an offensive minefield off the Firth of Forth, but the presence of British warships in the Dogger Bank forced the Germans to break off the operation.

[9] Kolberg participated in the first of these, the raid on Yarmouth on 2–4 November, where she supported the battlecruisers of I Scouting Group that were commanded by Konteradmiral (Rear Admiral) Franz von Hipper.

During the subsequent raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby on 15–16 December, Kolberg was also modified to carry 100 mines, which she laid off Filey Brigg while the battlecruisers shelled the ports.

[7][10][11][c] When the German forces withdrew, the weather became bad enough that Hipper ordered the other light cruisers to steam independently to the rendezvous with the main fleet; Kolberg had meanwhile joined up with the battlecruisers and proceeded with them.

Führer der Torpedoboote (Leader of Torpedo Boats), raised his flag aboard Kolberg, making her his flagship.

For the rest of 1915, she continued in her role with the fleet, participating in the sorties conducted by Admiral Hugo von Pohl and patrolling the German Bight.

While shelling the positions, Russian destroyers sortied to intercept Kolberg, and the ensuing battle prompted Hipper to send Von der Tann to support her.

A few days later, on the night of 13–14 August, Kolberg was present off the Irbe Strait at the southern entrance to the Gulf of Riga when she was attacked by Russian destroyers and coastal guns.

Kolberg participated in the fleet operation on 11–12 September to cover a group of minelayers off the Swarte Bank, but she was in dock for maintenance during the sortie of 23–24 October, prompting Restorff to temporarily transfer to the cruiser Graudenz.

Kommodore (Commodore) Hugo Langemak raised his flag aboard the ship, though she served as his flagship only briefly, before being replaced by Strassburg on 12 September.

On 11 November, Kolberg returned to Libau, and a month later, she went to Kiel on 12 December to be modernized at the Kaiserliche Werft (Imperial Shipyard) there.

At 06:00 on 14 October, Kolberg, Strassburg, Augsburg, and the old aviso Blitz, with escorting torpedo boats and minesweepers, sortied from Libau.

[24] Later that day, Kolberg moved into the Gulf and engaged a Russian coastal battery at Woi on Moon Island for ten minutes, starting at 13:35.

[25] On 4 November, Kolberg steamed from Arensburg to Windau, where she embarked Prince Leopold of Bavaria, the Ober Ost, the supreme commander of German forces on the Eastern Front.

The Russian government had agreed to an armistice with the Central Powers in December 1917, and while Kolberg was in the shipyard, the Baltic Sea reconnaissance force was dissolved on 24 January.

[21] Kolberg was transferred to the "Sonderverband für die Ostsee" (Special Unit for the Baltic Sea) on 28 March, which was tasked with supporting the German intervention in the Finnish Civil War.

She carried the Chief of the Marinestation der Ostsee (Baltic Sea Naval Station), Admiral Gustav Bachmann on a tour of Danzig, Libau, Windau, Reval, and Arensburg before disembarking him in Riga.

Kolberg was decommissioned on 17 December, after the end of the war; she was not included in the list of ships to be interned at Scapa Flow, and so she remained behind in Kiel.

In September 1924, Colmar and Jules Ferry contributed to a multi-national landing party of around 1,800 men drawn together due to violence in Shanghai.