SMS Kaiser Barbarossa with of armor plating, and the secondary casemates received of armor protection. Kaiser Wilhelm II, the Emperor of Germany, believed that a strong navy was necessary for the country to expand its influence outside continental Europe. As a result, he initiated a program of naval expansion in the late 1880s; the first battleships built under this program were the four "Brandenburg"-class ships. These were immediately followed by the five "Kaiser Friedrich III"-class battleships, of which "Kaiser Barbarossa" was a member. "Kaiser Barbarossa"s keel was laid down on 3 August 1898, at the Schichau-Werke in Danzig, under construction number 640. She
Bruno Kaiser gifted to the municipality by the couple's son, Marcel Herwegh. In 1946, shortly after the war, with the help of Kaiser's work on inventorizing the archive, the municipality was able to open the , its ground floor devoted to the Herweghs and their literary output. In 1943 Kaiser also joined the Swiss branch of the (increasingly Soviet sponsored) . In the summer of 1947, after a period in Belgium, Bruno Kaiser, with his wife Stascha, returned to Berlin which by now was in the Soviet occupation zone (SBZ / "Sowjetische Besatzungszone") of what remained of Germany. He became a Departmental