Liepzig photographed in 1934 in Kielder Forde, being passes by boats of the Reichsmarine engaged in a rowing race, in which most units at Kiel had entered at least one boat.
The German light cruiser Leipzig was the lead ship of her class (Nürnberg was her improved sister ship). She was the fourth German warship to carry the name of the city of Leipzig.
Commissioned: 8 October 1931
She was built at Wilhelmshaven and launched on 18 October 1929 Commissioned: 8 October 1931
During the Spanish Civil War Leipzig conducted several patrols as part of the international naval blockade.
On 13 December 1939 she was torpedoed by the Royal Navy submarine Salmon and severely damaged. Two destroyed boiler rooms were restored as living quarters only and Leipzig was converted into a training ship. She was recommissioned on 1 December 1940.
When Germany attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941 (Operation Barbarossa), the cruiser took part in the shelling of the islands Ösel and Dagö in the Baltic Sea, before returning to her duties as a training vessel. She remained in the Baltic Sea and on 15 October 1944 was accidentally rammed amidships by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen in heavy fog. Heavily damaged and effectively immobilised, she continued to serve as a training, barracks and flak ship. In March 1945 she shelled advancing Soviet army units near Gdynia, but was then moved to Apenrade at the end of March.
At the end of World War II Leipzig was surrendered to British forces, moved to Wilhelmshaven, and scuttled in the North Sea with a cargo of gas munitions on 16 December 1946.