 The ship was ordered on 10 November 1934 and laid down at Germania, Kiel on 12 October 1935 as yard number G539. She was launched on 18 March 1937 and completed on 28 August 1939. Erich Koellner was still on sea trials when World War II began and did not become operational until early January 1940 when she was assigned to the 8th Destroyer Division (8. Zerstörerdivision). Led by Commander (Fregattenkapitän) Erich Bey, Erich Koellner and her sisters Bruno Heinemann, and Wolfgang Zenker laid a minefield off Cromer during the night of 11 / 12 January that sank three ships totalling 11,153 Gross Register Tons (GRT). The same three ships laid 157 mines near the Haisborough Sands off Cromer on the night of 9 / 10 February. This minefield sank three ships of 11,885 GRT. During Operation Wikinger, an attempt to capture British fishing trawlers operating off the Dogger Bank on 22 February, two German destroyers hit newly laid British mines in the supposedly mine-free channel and sank. Koellner lost one man overboard while attempting to rescue sailors from the two sunken ships and succeeded in rescuing 24 men.
