SMS Falke (1865)

SMS Falke^[a] was an aviso of the North German Federal Navy and later the German Imperial Navy that was built in the mid-1860s. Originally built on speculation as a blockade runner for the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War, she was not sold before the war ended and a shipowner in the Netherlands instead purchased the vessel. The ship's owner renamed the ship Heinrich Heister, though he made no use of her. In 1870, following the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, the North German Navy was in search of vessels to augment its fleet and acquired Heinrich Heister, transferred her to Emden, briefly renaming her Emden to obscure the ship's movements, before being converted into an armed aviso with her intended name, Falke. Her wartime service was cut short by an accidental ramming by the ironclad warship SMS Arminius, sending Falke into dock for repairs.

She was next commissioned in 1875; she spent the next six years in active service either with the main fleet, as a tender, or as a fishery protection ship, being decommissioned toward the end of each year for the winter. She had repeated problems with her propulsion system during this period, and in 1879, she was involved in experiments with electrical lighting, making her the first German warship to be equipped with a searchlight. Laid up from 1882 through 1885, she was recommissioned in early 1886 for fishery protection duties, a role she filled for the next three years. She left service for the last time in late 1888, was struck from the naval register in 1890, and sold for scrap in 1892.
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