The Braunschweig-class battleships were a group of five pre-dreadnought battleships of the German Kaiserliche Marine built in the early 1900s. They were the first class of battleships authorized under the Second Naval Law, a major naval expansion program. The class comprised five ships—Braunschweig, Elsass, Hessen, Preussen, and Lothringen—and they were an improvement over the preceding Wittelsbach class. The Braunschweigs mounted a more powerful armament of 28 cm (11 in) and 17 cm (6.7 in) guns. Less than two years after the first members of the class entered service, the ships were rendered obsolescent by the British all-big-gun battleship Dreadnought, which curtailed their careers.

SMS Hessen was the third of five pre-dreadnought battleships of the Braunschweig class. She was laid down in 1902, was launched in September 1903, and was commissioned into the German Kaiserliche Marine in September 1905. Named after the state of Hesse, the ship was armed with a battery of four 28 cm (11 in) guns and had a top speed of 18 knots. Like all other pre-dreadnoughts built at the turn of the century, Hessen was quickly made obsolete by the launching of the revolutionary HMS Dreadnought in 1906; as a result, she saw only limited service with the German fleet.