 The ship was moved to the "Kaiserliche Werft" (Imperial Shipyard) in Wilhelmshaven for fitting-out work.She was commissioned for sea trials on 19 May 1904 under the command of "Korvettenkapitän" ("KK"—Corvette Captain) Paul Schlieper; during her initial testing, she reached a maximum speed of , far in excess of her design speed and very high for warships of the period.Trials were completed on 15 July and "Bremen" was scheduled to be decommissioned, but the naval command instead decided to send her to replace the light cruiser on a deployment to the American Station.