 On 1 April 1914 , Fregattenkapitän Max Looff took command of the ship . Königsberg left Kiel on 25 April , stopped in Wilhelmshaven , and then left three days later for a two @-@ year deployment to German East Africa . She steamed into the Mediterranean Sea and stopped in Spanish and Italian ports before entering the Suez Canal . After passing through the canal , she stopped briefly in Aden before arriving in Dar es Salaam , the capital of German East Africa , on 5 June . Two days later , the Schutztruppe ( Protection Force ) celebrated their 25th anniversary in the colony ; the deputy commander of the Schutztruppe presented Looff with a model of the cruiser Schwalbe , which had been the longest serving warship with the unit . Königsberg surveyed the harbor at Bagamoyo later in the year . The African colonial subjects considered the ship to be quite impressive , particularly her three funnels , which were assumed to signify a warship more powerful than one with only two funnels . The ship acquired the nickname Manowari na bomba tatu , or " the man of war with three pipes " . 
