Laid Down: 8/12/21
Commissioned: 15/10/25
Full Load Displacement 6,990 tons
Draft: 19.5 ft
Speed: 29.4 kts
Range: 6,500 nautical miles at 15 kts
Armor: 50mm side 40mm deck
Armament: 8x 150mm (120 rpg), 3x 88mm (400 rpg), 6x 20mm, 4 x 533mm torpedoes, 120 mines.

Emden went to work right at the start of the war laying mines in the North Sea on Sept. 3, 1939. The next day, however, while reloading mines in Wilhelmshaven she was struck in the side by a Blenheim being shot down. Although there were many casualties, repairs only took a week.

On April 6, 1940, Emden embarked troops at Swinemunde for the invasion of Norway. She departed from Kiel two days later with the group assigned to land at Oslo. Although the group was turned back in Oslofiord, Emden successfully disembarked her troops. Emden returned from Norway in June 1940 for a minor refit at Swinemunde. She began a longer overhaul from November until February 1941, when she became a training ship in the Baltic.

Emden was used to escort the pocket battleship Lutzow to Norway on June 10, 1941, arriving at Oslo the next day. Returning to the Baltic she departed from Swinemunde on Sept. 23, 1941 and, after refueling at Pillau, arrived at Libau the next day.

She set out on the 25th with the light cruiser Leipzig and three torpedo boats. Next day Emden fired 245 rounds at Soviet troops holding out on the Sworbe Peninsula. She fired another 320 rounds at the same targets on the 27th, despite return fire from Soviet coastal defenses, and 178 rounds while beating off an attack by four Soviet MTBs. The German ships were also unsuccessfully attacked by the Soviet submarine Sch 317 before they returned to Libau. Emden departed from Libau on the 28th and returned to Gdynia.

Emden was used exclusively for training until late in the war when she was called up to lay mines in the Skagerrak in September and October of 1944. She was damaged from running aground on Dec. 9, 1944 and arrived at Konigsberg for repairs on Christmas Day. However, in the waning months of the war these were never completed and Emden, loaded with refugees, was towed from Konigsberg on Jan. 23, 1945, eventually arriving at Kiel on February 6. Heavily damaged by a RAF raid on April 9, Emden was scuttled at Kiel on May 3.

More WWII German Light Cruisers

Introduction
Emden
Konigsberg
Karlsruhe
Koln
Leipzig
Nurnberg