KMS Nürnberg was laid down in Kiel in 1934 as the second ship of the Leipzig-class of German light cruisers. Nürnberg was in fact, laid down some five years after the Leipzig due to the fact that it wasn’t initially ordered alongside the Leipzig. Instead, the ship was ordered for construction later on, as part of a planned expansion of the Kriegsmarine in the 1930s, resulting in the design also receiving some serious changes along the way.

The ship was completed after less than a year of construction, being officially commissioned into the Kriegsmarine in November 1935. Nürnberg’s pre-WW2 career is most notably defined by participating in non-intervention patrols along the coast of the Iberian peninsula during the Spanish Civil War. The remaining pre-war years, Nürnberg spent taking part in various naval exercises as well as in the occupation of the Memmel in 1939.

Early into WW2, Nürnberg was damaged by a torpedo fired by a British submarine, off the coast of Britain during an escort mission. The ship suffered only minor damages on returned to Kiel for repairs shortly afterwards.

Throughout WW2, Nürnberg would mainly serve in the Baltic sea or in Norwegian waters as a training ship or would assist in mine laying operations. By the end of WW2, fuel shortages severely limited the operational capabilities of Nürnberg. In January 1945, severely low on fuel, Nürnberg returned to Copenhagen where the ship remained until the end of the war.

Nürnberg was captured by the Royal Navy in Copenhagen and was later transferred to the Soviet Union as war reparations. In Soviet service, Nürnberg, now renamed to Admiral Makarov, continued to serve into the early 1950s, before being replaced by new Soviet cruisers. She continued serving as a training ship until the late 1950s, until finally being scuttled some time during the mid 1960s.