 After returning to the Baltic , Prince Heinrich ordered a foray toward Gotland . On 26 December 1914 , the battleships rendezvoused with the Baltic cruiser division in the Bay of Pomerania and then departed on the sortie . Two days later , the fleet arrived off Gotland to show the German flag , and was back in Kiel by 30 December . The squadron returned to the North Sea for guard duties , but was withdrawn from frontline service in February 1915 . Shortages of trained crews in the High Seas Fleet , coupled with the risk of operating older ships in wartime , necessitated the deactivation of Kaiser Barbarossa and her sisters . Her crew was reduced on 5 March , only to be replaced on 11 April so the ship could be used as a torpedo target ship ; this service lasted until 9 November . Ten days later , she was decommissioned for the last time , and in 1916 she was disarmed . Kaiser Barbarossa was thereafter employed as a floating prison for prisoners of war in Wilhelmshaven . In November 1918 , Germany sought an end to the war and signed the First Armistice at Compiègne , which temporarily ended hostilities so a peace treaty could be negotiated . Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles , which formally ended the war and was signed on 28 June 1919 , Germany was permitted to retain only six battleships of the " Deutschland or Lothringen types . " Accordingly , the ship was struck from the naval list on 6 December 1919 and sold to ship @-@ breakers . Kaiser Barbarossa was broken up for scrap metal in Rüstringen in 1919 and 1920 . 
