"Wettin"s keel was laid on 10 October 1899, at the Schichau-Werke in Danzig, under construction number 676. She was ordered under the contract name "D", as a new unit for the fleet. "Wettin" was launched on 6 June 1901. King Albert of Saxony, a member of the House of Wettin, gave a speech at the ceremony. In August 1902, a crew of 60 men took the ship to Kiel for sea trials, which were supervised by "KAdm" Hunold von Ahlefeld. On 10 August, while at Swinemünde during the trials, Kaiser Wilhelm II reviewed "Wettin" from his yacht "Hohenzollern". "Wettin" was commissioned on 1 October 1902, the first member of her class to enter service. Further sea trials were completed by January 1903 and she joined I Squadron, replacing the battleship . That year, the squadron was occupied with the normal peacetime routine of individual and unit training. This included a training cruise in the Baltic Sea followed by a voyage to Spain from 7 May to 10 June. In July, she embarked on the annual cruise to Norway with the rest of the squadron. The autumn maneuvers consisted of a blockade exercise in the North Sea, a cruise of the entire fleet to Norwegian waters, and a mock attack on Kiel ending on 12 September. The year's training schedule concluded with a cruise into the eastern Baltic that started on 23 November and a cruise into the Skagerrak that began on 1 December.