SMS Hela was an aviso, and later an unarmored cruiser, of the Kaiserliche Marine launched on 28 March 1895 and commissioned on 3 May 1896.

SMS Hela deployed to China in 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion, where she spent most of her time patrolling the Chinese coast and Yangtze River.  In mid-1901, she returned to Germany, where she served briefly with the fleet and as a training ship before being laid up for reconstruction from 1903 to 1910. 

At the outbreak of World War I, SMS Hela patrolled the German/Heligoland Bight, where she was torpedoed and sunk by the British submarine HMS E9 on 13 September 1914.