The Nürnberg was the second ship of the Leipzig-class light cruisers, built for the Kriegsmarine in the mid-1930s. She was laid down in 1934 and commissioned on 2nd November 1935. The Nürnberg when built was armed with nine 15 cm SK C/25 cannons in three triple turrets with two located aft and one on bow of the ship. Secondary armament consisted eight 8.8 cm/76 SK C/32 guns for anti-aircraft protection together with eight 3.7 cm SK C/30 cannons and eight 2cm SK/38 autocannons. The ship was also armed with four triple torpedo tubes carrying 24 torpedoes in total. These torpedo tubes were removed in a 1942 refit of the ship, being reduced to two triple tubes. The ship served in Spanish Civil War intervention patrols without major incident. After the outbreak of WWII, she laid minefields in the North Sea, where she was also torpedoed by British submarine HMS Salmon on 13th December 1939 together with her sister ship Leipzig. After repairs in drydock and a refit, Nürnberg was sent to Norway for a brief period until she became a training ship all the way until 1945. Her last sortie of the war was conducted on 13th January when she sortied to lay minefields from Oslo. On 24th January, she arrived in Copenhagen where she spent the rest of the war. On 22nd May 1945, British cruisers HMS Dido and HMS Devonshire arrived to take her over. After the war, she became the only Kriegsmarine ship to see active duty after the end of WWII. She was handed over to the Soviet Navy by the British as war reparations where she served as a training ship under the name Admiral Makarov in Kronshtadt until 1960 when she was broken up for scrap.

The Nürnberg was introduced in Update 1.87 "Locked On". She is the last German cruiser captains come across. The playstyle of Nürnberg is very similar to her sister Leipzig or K-class cruiser Köln. The main difference between her and Leipzig is the ability to carry torpedoes. Unlike Leipzig, the Nürnberg's main armament turret armour was increased from 30 to 80 mm at front and from 20 to 35 mm on the rear. The Nürnberg possesses impressive firepower as her main guns can fire up to 12 rounds per minute, however, the ship itself and the magazines in particular are very lightly protected by 50 mm belt armour and are located above the waterline, making them extremely vulnerable to fatal explosions. The long-range anti-aircraft suite consists of four pairs of 8.8 cm cannons with HE-TF shells, while close-range protection is made up of various 40 mm, 37 mm, and 20 mm cannons. The Nürnberg is capable of dealing heavy damage to enemy ships, but caution is needed as the ship cannot sustain enemy fire for long.