SMS Sperber ("His Majesty's Ship Sperber—Sparrowhawk")[a] was an unprotected cruiser built for the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy), the second member of the Schwalbe class.

Sperber was built at the Kaiserliche Werft (Imperial Dockyard) in Danzig; her keel was laid down in September 1887 and her completed hull was launched in August 1888.

Designed for colonial service, Sperber was armed with a main battery of eight 10.5-centimeter (4.1 in) guns and had a cruising radius of over 3,000 nautical miles (5,600 km; 3,500 mi); she also had an auxiliary sailing rig to supplement her steam engines.

Through the 1870s and early 1880s, Germany built two types of cruising vessels: small, fast avisos suitable for service as fleet scouts and larger, long-ranged screw corvettes capable of patrolling the German colonial empire.

The Schwalbes were the first modern unprotected cruiser to be built for the Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy), marking the first step in Caprivi's plans.

Her propulsion system consisted of two horizontal 2-cylinder double-expansion steam engines powered by four coal-fired cylindrical fire-tube boilers.

She was thereafter assigned to the South Seas Station in German New Guinea to replace the gunboats Adler and Eber, which had been destroyed by the 1889 Apia cyclone.

While coaling in Aden on 13 October, the cruiser received orders to head to German East Africa, which was gripped by the Abushiri Revolt.

Sperber's first assignment upon reaching East Africa was to conduct a formal survey of the border between Wituland and British Kenya.

In early December, Sperber and her sister ship Schwalbe were present at ceremonial reception of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition at Bagamoyo.

In mid-January 1890, Pfeil, Leipzig, and Sophie left East Africa, leaving Schwalbe, Sperber, and Carola on the station.

In January 1891, Sperber's commander presided over the unveiling of a monument to the German sailors who had been killed at the Battle of Vailele in December 1888.

After the repair work was completed, Sperber went on a tour of Germany's colonies in the Pacific, including the Bismarck Archipelago, the Marshalls, and Butaritari.

While en route, she had to stop at Tabiteuea in the Gilbert Islands and send a landing party ashore to punish locals who had attacked German businessmen there.

Sperber was back in Apia by 17 May, and she remained there until 1 November, when she left for another tour, which included stops at Nukufetau, Herbertshöhe—the capital of German New Guinea—and Friedrich Wilhelmshafen.

He was arrested, however, which caused the movement to disperse; after she returned from Sydney, Sperber was tasked with taking Mata'afa into exile on Jaluit Atoll.

Her shallower draft, compared to her predecessor Falke, permitted her to routinely cross the sandbar in the mouth of the Kamerun River.

[8] She visited Cape Town on 10 November 1895, and while on her way there, she carried a granite copy of the padrão that had been placed there by the Portuguese explorer Diogo Cão in the late 15th century.

Sperber left the East-American Station on 22 March and steamed through the Mediterranean Sea, arriving in Dar es Salaam on 1 July.

In February 1909, she visited the ruins of Groß Friedrichsburg, the old capital of the Brandenburger Gold Coast, a colony founded by Frederick William I of Prussia in the 17th century.