The ship was based on the blueprints from the late-war cruiser , primarily due to personnel shortages in the design staff and the closure of the Navy's Ship Testing Institute, and the blueprints for "Karlsruhe" were still available. Completed to a dated design, she proved to be something of a disappointment in service, primarily owing to her weak broadside of just six 15 cm guns. Nevertheless, the ship incorporated major advances over the earlier designs, including large-scale use of welding in her construction and a significantly more efficient propulsion system that gave her a cruising radius fifty percent larger than that of the older ships, which proved to be quite useful on the extended training cruises of the 1920s and 1930s.