The Leipzig was built in 1959 at the Warnow shipyard in Warnemünde . She was the ninth ship of the Type IV series , the first series of 10,000-tonne general cargo freighters to be built in the GDR shipyards . Since the first ship in this series was christened the Peace , the other ships in this series of fifteen newbuildings also received the additional designation of the Peace type .
On June 28, 1959, the ship was handed over to the Deutsche Seereederei and went on liner service to China, North Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Sudan and Yemen, but also to Cuba and India.
With just a single accident , the Leipzig achieved the most stable course of the Type IV series. On July 21, 1980, the Leipzig was decommissioned by DSR and then sold to Saudi Arabia , where it ran under the name Saudi Trader . On March 4, 1983, the aft living quarters were damaged by fire. In 1986 the ship was scrapped in India.