The Flottenkreuzer was a projected design study for a small cruiser focused on fleet services. Previous German cruiser design were always a more general approach to be used for mutliple tasks:

• Fleet services, in combination with the battle fleet or the battlecruisers
• Torpedo boat leaders
• Foreign services

Other navies favoured special designs for those tasks, and the Flottenkreuzer design was a first strudy for such a ship, comparable with the British C-class cruisers.

As this was just a design study, the ship was never ment to be build.