"Frankfurt" was ordered under the contract name ""Ersatz" " and was laid down at the "Kaiserliche Werft" shipyard in Kiel in 1913 and launched on 20 March 1915. The ships was commissioned into the High Seas Fleet on 20 August 1915. "Frankfurt" saw extensive action with the High Seas Fleet during World War I. She served primarily in the North Sea, and participated in the Bombardment of Yarmouth and Lowestoft and the battles of Jutland and Second Heligoland. At Jutland, she was lightly damaged by a British cruiser and her crew suffered minor casualties. The ship was also present during Operation Albion in the Baltic Sea in October 1917. At the end of the war, she was interned with the bulk of the German fleet in Scapa Flow. When the fleet was scuttled in June 1919, "Frankfurt" was one of the few ships that were not successfully sunk. She was ceded to the US Navy as a war prize and ultimately expended as a bomb target in tests conducted by the US Navy and Army Air Force in July 1921.