Leipzig was the lead ship of her class of light cruisers built by the German navy. She had one sister ship, Nürnberg. Leipzig was laid down in April 1928, was launched in October 1929, and was commissioned into the Reichsmarine in October 1931. Armed with a main battery of nine guns in three triple turrets, Leipzig had a top speed of . Leipzig participated in non-intervention patrols during the Spanish Civil War. In the first year of World War II, she performed escort duties for warships in the Baltic and North seas. While on one of these operations in December 1939, the ship was torpedoed by a British submarine and badly damaged. Repairs were completed by late 1940, when she returned to service as a training ship. She provided gunfire support to the advancing Wehrmacht troops as they invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. In October 1944, Leipzig collided with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen; the damage was so severe that the navy decided complete repairs were unfeasible. The ship was patched up to keep her afloat, and she helped to defend Gotenhafen from the advancing Red Army in March 1945. She then carried a group of fleeing German civilians, reaching Denmark by late April. After the end of the war, Leipzig was used as a barracks ship for minesweeping forces and was scuttled in July 1946. Design Leipzig was long overall and had a beam of and a maximum draft of forward. She displaced at full load. Leipzig had a crew of 26 officers and 508 enlisted men. Her propulsion system consisted of two steam turbines and four 7-cylinder MAN two-stroke double-acting diesel engines, which were the basis for the unsuccessful US Navy Hooven-Owens-Rentschler design. Steam for the turbines was provided by six Marine-type, double-ended, oil-fired water-tube boilers. The ship's propulsion system provided a top speed of and a range of approximately at using only the diesel engines. The ship was armed with a main battery of nine SK C/25 guns mounted in three triple gun turrets. One was located forward, and two were placed in a superfiring pair aft, all on the centerline. They were supplied with between 1,080 and 1,500 rounds of ammunition, for between 120 and 166 shells per gun. As built, the ship was also equipped with two SK L/45 anti-aircraft guns in single mounts; they had 400 rounds of ammunition each. Leipzig also carried