SMS Hertha (1864)

SMS Hertha was a member of the Arcona class of steam frigates built for the Prussian Navy in the 1860s. The class comprised five ships, and were the first major steam-powered warships ordered for the Prussian Navy. The ships were ordered as part of a major construction program to strengthen the nascent Prussian fleet, under the direction of Prince Adalbert, and were intended to provide defense against the Royal Danish Navy. Hertha was armed with a battery of twenty-eight guns, and was capable of steaming at a speed of 11.5 knots (21.3 km/h; 13.2 mph). Hertha was laid down in 1860, launched in 1864, and commissioned in 1865.

The ship was activated during the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, but saw no action during the brief conflict. Next reactivated in 1867 into what was now the North German Federal Navy, Hertha made a cruise to the Mediterranean Sea that concluded in 1868. During the voyage, her crew assisted in the recovery of the grounded French corvette Roland. Hertha next returned to the Mediterranean in 1869 for the opening ceremonies of the Suez Canal, after which she sailed on for a tour of East Asia. She was still there in mid-1870 when the Franco-Prussian War broke out. Hertha was quickly trapped in Yokohama, Japan, along with the corvette Medusa, by superior French naval forces. As a result, she saw no action during that war. She returned home after the war ended in 1871.

Hertha went another major overseas cruise in 1874 for a circumnavigation of the globe, during which she spent a significant amount of time in East Asia and the central Pacific Ocean. There, her captain, Eduard von Knorr, negotiated trade agreements with Tonga and Samoa before returning to Germany in mid-1877. A shorter cruise in the Mediterranean followed from mid-1877 to early 1878. In late 1880, she embarked on her last major overseas voyage, which again took the ship to East Asia and the Pacific. The voyage concluded with a cruise around Africa, after which Hertha returned to Germany in late 1882. She was struck from the naval register in 1884, converted into a coal storage hulk, and used in that capacity until 1902, when she was broken up.