This was a result of budgetary constraints that prevented the Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) from building more specialized cruisers suitable for both roles.

All four members of the class were intended to be identical, but after the initial vessel was begun, the design staff incorporated lessons from the Russo-Japanese War.

The ship's propulsion system was rated to produce 13,500 metric horsepower (9,900 kW) for a top speed of 23 knots (43 km/h; 26 mph), though she exceeded these figures in service.

Stettin's normal peacetime routine of training exercises was interrupted from 17 June to 8 August, when she was ordered to escort Hohenzollern, the yacht of Kaiser Wilhelm II.

On 9 April, she departed Kiel in company with the light cruiser Lübeck, which was to support Hamburg in operations off the coast of Anatolia.

The year 1911 passed uneventfully for Stettin, beyond the normal peacetime routine of training exercises and fleet maneuvers.

There, they met the US Atlantic Fleet and were greeted by then-President William Howard Taft aboard the presidential yacht USS Mayflower.

Later that year, she was involved in a minor collision with the steam ship SS Cassandra, and Stettin had one of her spotting tops torn off a mast.

On 1 July, the ship was reactivated and received a full crew; she was now to join the U-boat force as a submarine flotilla flagship.

The force sailed about 100 nautical miles (190 km; 120 mi) to the northwest of Helgoland and then returned to port without having encountered any British warships.

[12] When the British first attacked the German torpedo boats, Hipper immediately dispatched Stettin and Frauenlob, and several other cruisers that were in distant support, to come to their aid.

At 08:32, Stettin received the report of German torpedo boats in contact with the British, and immediately weighed anchor and steamed off to support them.

The German battlecruisers Von der Tann and Moltke reached the scene by 15:25, by which time the British had already disengaged and withdrawn.

[3] Stettin was removed from her role as flotilla flagship on 25 November, and two days later, she was assigned to IV Scouting Group, part of the reconnaissance screen for the battleships of the High Seas Fleet.

[15] The first that involved Stettin began on 15 December, when I Scouting Group, led by Hipper, conducted a bombardment of Scarborough, Hartlepool, and Whitby on the English coast.

The main body of the High Seas Fleet, commanded by Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl, stood by in distant support; Stettin and two flotillas of torpedo boats screened the rear of the formation.

[16] That evening, the German battle fleet of some twelve dreadnoughts and eight pre-dreadnoughts came to within 10 nmi (19 km; 12 mi) of an isolated squadron of six British battleships.

[18] On 4 May 1915, IV Scouting Group, which by then consisted of Stettin, Stuttgart, München, and Danzig, and twenty-one torpedo boats was sent into the Baltic Sea to support a major operation against Russian positions at Libau.

IV Scouting Group was tasked with screening to the north to prevent any Russian naval forces from moving out of the Gulf of Finland undetected, while several armored cruisers and other warships bombarded the port.

The pace of operations slowed somewhat, and on 2 July, Stettin again served in the covering force for a torpedo-boat patrol among the fishing ships south of Horns Rev.

The final fleet operation of the war took place on 23–24 October in the direction of Horns Rev; like its predecessors, the ships did not encounter British vessels.

The first major operation carried out by Stettin and the rest of IV Scouting Group took place on 4 March, and it was a patrol to cover the return of the commerce raider Möwe.

The following day, the ships joined the main body of the High Seas Fleet for a sweep into the Hoofden that concluded on 7 March, again without result.

While Heinrich flew his flag aboard Stettin, the ships took part in another fleet operation that resulted in the bombardment of Yarmouth and Lowestoft by the battlecruisers of I Scouting Group on 24–25 April.

[18][22] During the withdrawal from the battle on the night of 31 May at around 23:30, the battlecruisers Moltke and Seydlitz passed ahead of Stettin too closely, forcing her to slow down.

In the meantime, Frauenlob was set on fire and sunk; as the German cruisers turned to avoid colliding with the sinking wreck, IV Scouting Group became dispersed.

[25] After the battle, Stettin was docked at the Reiherstieg Schiffswerfte & Maschinenfabrik shipyard in Hamburg for repairs that lasted from 7 to 22 June.

By the time repairs to the ships of IV Scouting Group were completed in July, the unit consisted of Stettin, Stuttgart, Danzig, Hamburg, München, and Berlin.

She was detached from IV Scouting Group in August, and on 10 September, she became the flagship of the Commander of the Defenses of the Western Baltic Sea, KAdm Hermann Nordmann.

Instead, she served briefly as the flagship for the Commander of Minesweeping and Clearing Force from 10 June to 20 July, at which point she was replaced by the cruiser Augsburg.