SMS Geier ("His Majesty's Ship Vulture") was an unprotected cruiser of the Bussard class built for the German Imperial Navy (Kaiserliche Marine). She was laid down in 1893 at the Imperial Dockyard in Wilhelmshaven, launched in October 1894, and commissioned into the fleet a year later in October 1895. Designed for service in Germany's overseas colonies, the ship required the comparatively heavy armament of eight 10.5 cm (4.1 in) SK L/35 guns and a long cruising radius. She had a top speed of 15.5 kn (28.7 km/h; 17.8 mph).

Geier spent the majority of her career on foreign stations, including tours in the Americas, East Asia, and Africa. In 1897, she was deployed to the Caribbean, and during the Spanish–American War the following year, she ferried Europeans out of the war zone to Mexico by crossing the blockade lines around Cuban ports. After being transferred to the western coast of the Americas in 1899, Geier was reassigned to China to help suppress the Boxer Uprising in 1900. She remained in East Asian waters through 1905 before being recalled to Germany for major repairs. In 1911, the ship was assigned to the colony in German East Africa, though she served little time in the area, as the Italo-Turkish War of 1911–1912 and the Balkan Wars of 1912–13 required German warships in the Mediterranean to safeguard German interests. Geier returned to East Africa in early 1914, but in June that month, the new light cruiser Königsberg arrived, and Geier headed to China for second deployment there.

Geier was still en route to the German base in Qingdao when war broke out in Europe in August 1914. Slipping out of still-neutral British Singapore days before Britain declared war on Germany, she crossed the central Pacific in an attempt to link up with Maximilian von Spee's East Asia Squadron. While at sea, she captured one British freighter, but did not sink her. In need of engine repairs and coal, Geier put into the neutral United States port at Honolulu, Hawaii, in October 1914, where she was eventually interned. After the American entrance into the war in April 1917, the US Navy seized Geier, commissioned her as USS Schurz, and placed her on convoy duty. She was ultimately sunk following a collision with a freighter off the coast of North Carolina, with one man killed and twelve injured. She rests at a depth of 115 feet (35 m) and is a popular scuba diving site.

Through the 1870s and early 1880s, Germany built two types of cruising vessels: small, fast avisos suitable for service as fleet scouts and larger, long-ranged screw corvettes capable of patrolling the German colonial empire. A pair of new cruisers was authorized under the 1886–1887 fiscal year, intended for the latter purpose. General Leo von Caprivi, the Chief of the Imperial Admiralty, sought to modernize Germany's cruiser force. The first step in the program, the two Schwalbe-class unprotected cruisers, provided the basis for the larger Bussard class.

Geier was 83.9 meters (275 ft 3 in) long overall and had a beam of 10.6 m (34 ft 9 in) and a draft of 4.74 m (15 ft 7 in) forward. She displaced 1,608 t (1,583 long tons) normally and up to 1,918 t (1,888 long tons; 2,114 short tons) at full load. Her propulsion system consisted of two horizontal 3-cylinder triple-expansion steam engines that drove a pair of screw propellers. Steam was provided by four coal-fired cylindrical fire-tube boilers that were ducted into a single funnel. These provided a top speed of 15.5 knots (28.7 km/h; 17.8 mph) from 2,800 metric horsepower (2,800 ihp), and a range of approximately 3,610 nautical miles (6,690 km; 4,150 mi) at 9 kn (17 km/h; 10 mph). She had a crew of 9 officers and 152 enlisted men.

The ship was armed with a main battery of eight 10.5 cm (4.1 in) SK L/35 quick-firing (QF) guns in single pedestal mounts, supplied with 800 rounds of ammunition in total. They had a range of 10,800 m (35,400 ft). Two guns were placed side by side forward, two on each broadside, and two side by side aft. The gun armament was rounded out by five 3.7 cm (1.5 in) Hotchkiss revolver cannon for defense against torpedo boats. She was also equipped with two 45 cm (17.7 in) torpedo tubes with five torpedoes, both of which were mounted on the deck.

Geier was ordered under the contract name "F", and was laid down at the Imperial Dockyard in Wilhelmshaven in 1893. She was launched on 18 October 1894, after which fitting-out work commenced. During her launching ceremony, Vizeadmiral (Vice Admiral) Victor Valois christened the ship. She was commissioned into the German Navy on 24 October 1895 for sea trials. Her trials were completed on 21 January 1896, and she was decommissioned temporarily in Kiel. During construction, her design was slightly modified based on experience from her sister ships that had already completed their sea trials. Geier's displacement was increased slightly by around 50 t (49 long tons; 55 short tons) compared to the other ships of the class and her stern was modified.

Geier was recommissioned on 1 December 1897 for her first deployment abroad, to the West Indies. Until then, Germany had relied on school ships to protect German nationals in the region. Rising tensions in Haiti prompted the Admiralstab (Admiralty Staff) to send Geier to the Caribbean, replacing the old ironclad Oldenburg that had been scheduled to deploy there. The ironclad König Wilhelm, which had recently been rebuilt into an armored cruiser, was sent to strengthen the German naval contingent. Geier departed Kiel on 9 December and arrived in Charlotte Amalie in the Danish West Indies on 3 January 1898, where she rendezvoused with the school ships Charlotte and Stein. Charlotte and Stein had already taken care of the situation in Haiti, so Geier went to Santiago de Cuba, where she stayed from 24 March to 6 April. She then received an order to visit Brazilian and Argentinian ports; stops included Pernambuco in Brazil (16–20 April) and Bahía Blanca in Argentina (23 April). While she was in the latter port, her tour of South America was cut short due to the outbreak of the Spanish–American War.