At the beginning of World War I, the Vulcan shipyard in Szczecin was in the process of finishing four high-performance turbine sets for the new Russian battlecruiser Navarin of the Borodino class , but due to the circumstances, these were no longer delivered. On the German side, the idea of using these machines and using them in their own new cruiser came up very quickly. Since the sea mine had already proven its offensive value at this point, the new ships were designed as fast mine cruisers and reconnaissance aircraft. The development time was relatively short, as the design was based on the newer fleet cruisers and the machinery was already in the final stage.
draft
Since sea mines should form a main weapon, a high transport capacity was aimed for, instead of the usual 120 up to 400 sea mines could be transported. For weight reasons, the main artillery was reduced to four 15 cm guns compared to the previous small cruisers and the armor strength was halved. Since this class should preferably operate in enemy waters, the aim was to achieve a high average and top speed, which was achieved with the increased use of oil-fired boilers. In order not to be immediately identified as a German ship during operations, great importance was attached to visual similarity to British cruisers: The Brummer class was very similar to the British light cruisers of the Arethusa class , i.e. three funnels, an elegant clipper bow and a ( front) mainmast.
Erwin Strohbusch : Warship building since 1848 , German Maritime Museum, Bremerhaven 1984
Erich Gröner , Dieter Jung and Martin Maass: The German Warships 1815–1945 Volume 1 . Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-7637-4800-8 .
Gerhard Koop / Klaus-Peter Schmolke: Small cruisers 1903-1918, Bremen to Cöln class , volume 12 ship classes and ship types of the German navy, Bernard & Graefe Verlag Munich, 2004, ISBN 3-7637-6252-3
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