The six light cruisers Germany possessed in World War II, limited to a standard displacement of 6,000 tons by the Treaty of Versailles, were Germany's first post-WWI warships. All were designed for littoral warfare in the North Sea and Baltic. The Emden followed WWI design practice with shielded guns mounted along the beams. The five ships that followed introduced tripled turrets to the German navy but were later found to be too structurally weak to withstand heavy seas and very short ranged because a proportion of their fuel could not be used in order to preserve stability. In the late 1930s a program was initiated to strengthen the ships, but only the Karlsruhe was so modified before war broke out.

More WWII German Light Cruisers

Introduction
Emden
Konigsberg
Karlsruhe
Koln
Leipzig
Nurnberg