Cruiser C and the German lineage of the name Karlsruhe

The second ship began as Cruiser C and was initially associated with the proposed name Medusa before Karlsruhe was chosen. That name is traced back through an earlier Karlsruhe-class light cruiser launched in 1912 and a later wartime cruiser of the 1916 Königsberg class. The recurrence connects the Reichsmarine ship to Imperial German cruiser tradition even as the institution around it had changed. The naming history also distinguishes several similarly named ships that could otherwise blur together in a class narrative.