SMS Cöln was a light cruiser in the German Kaiserliche Marine, the second to bear this name, after her predecessor SMS Cöln had been lost in the Battle of Heligoland Bight.
Cöln was laid down at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg in 1915 and was launched on 5 October 1916, after which fitting-out work commenced. She was commissioned into the High Seas Fleet on 17 January 1918.
The ship was 155.5 meters (510 ft) long overall and had a beam of 14.2 m (47 ft) and a draft of 6.01 m (19.7 ft) forward.
She participated in a fleet operation to Norway to attack British convoys to Scandinavia, but they failed to locate any convoys and returned to port.
Cöln was to have participated in a climactic sortie in the final days of the war, but a revolt in the fleet forced Admirals Reinhard Scheer and Franz von Hipper to cancel the operation.
The ship was interned in Scapa Flow after the end of the war and scuttled with the fleet there on 21 June 1919, under orders from the fleet commander Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter. Unlike many of the other ships scuttled there, Cöln was never raised for scrapping.
Source: Wikipedia
