In the First World War Cap Polonio was briefly commissioned as the auxiliary cruiser SMS Vineta.

Hamburg Süd had ordered her as a running mate for Cap Trafalgar, which had been launched in 1913 and entered service in April 1914.

Cap Polonio's holds included 395 cubic metres (13,949 cu ft) of refrigerated space for perishable cargo.

With the prior agreement of the owners, the Imperial German Navy requisitioned her for conversion to an auxiliary cruiser.

Although the combination of piston engines and a turbine had achieved unrivalled fuel economy and good speeds in several UK-built liners, Vineta failed to reach her designed top speed of 17 knots (31 km/h), and her coal consumption was a prodigious 250 tons per day.

Restored to her civilian name Cap Polonio, she remained at Hamburg, trapped by the Allied blockade of Germany.

She sailed to England, was painted in Union-Castle colours and embarked passengers and homeward-bound South African soldiers for a voyage to Cape Town and Durban.

In February 1922 she finally began the Hamburg – Buenos Aires service for which she had been built eight years earlier.

However, parts of the ship's luxurious interior were salvaged and taken to Pinneberg in Holstein, where they were used to create the Hotel Cap Polonio.

[5] In 1977 Deutsche Bundespost Berlin issued a set of pictorial commemorative stamps of German merchant ships.