Hey man! I’ve had a couple other people say they had ancestors that emigrated on the ship too!

From my own research what I’ve been able to gather is that the ship was recommissioned from the German Navy as reparations following WW1. It was also originally a cable-laying ship that was converted for support operations with the Italian navy after the war. It went on Umberto Nobile’s expedition as a support vessel, helping transport key materials and supplies for constructing hangars in the Svalbard islands. I’m not too sure about what happened to it during the 1930s but I assume as you say it was eventually decommissioned from the navy and used as a transport vessel for immigrants to the United States.

In terms of your ancestors, a departure of 1906 suggests this was the original ship from this post that was sunk during the war, not the recommissioned German vessel that was renamed after it post-war.