German destroyer Z15 Erich Steinbrinck

Another minefield of 170 magnetic mines was laid by Steinbrinck, Ihn and Eckoldt on the night of 6–7 January 1940 off the Thames Estuary. The destroyer HMS Grenville and six merchant ships totalling 21,617 GRT were lost to this minefield as well and another ship was damaged as well.[19] The ship was under repairs during Operation Weserübung in April and did not leave the dockyard until May when she began working up as part of the 5th Destroyer Flotilla. Her work up was cut short to escort the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, as well as the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper participating in Operation Juno, a planned attack on Harstad, Norway, to relieve pressure on the German garrison at Narvik. The ships sortied on 8 June and sank the troop transport Orama, the oil tanker Oil Pioneer and the minesweeping trawler Juniper en route. The German commander, Admiral Wilhelm Marschall, then ordered the Admiral Hipper and all four destroyers to Trondheim because of the heavy weather, where they arrived in the morning of 9 June. The two battleships continued the sortie and sank the aircraft carrier Glorious and her two escorting destroyers, although Scharnhorst was badly damaged by a torpedo from the destroyer Acasta in the engagement. The battleship was escorted home by the destroyers Steinbrinck, Lody and Hermann Schoemann for repairs. Steinbrinck and Lody then returned to Trondheim to escort Gneisenau home, after she been torpedoed by a British submarine.[20]

The flotilla laid defensive minefields in the North Sea in August and early September before it was transferred to the Atlantic Coast of France in mid-September. Now based at Brest[21] the flotilla laid a minefield in Falmouth Bay during the night of 28/29 September. Five ships totalling only 2,026 GRT were sunk by this minefield.[22] Led by captain (Kapitän zur See) Erich Bey, Steinbrinck and four other destroyers sortied for the Southwest Approaches on 17 October and were intercepted by a British force of two light cruisers and five destroyers. The British opened fire at extreme range and were forced to disengage in the face of long-range torpedo volleys and attacks by Luftwaffe bombers without having hit any of the German ships. Steinbrinck returned home on 7 November for a refit in Stettin.[23]

Her refit was completed in late January 1941, but she was trapped by thick ice so that she could not reach Gotenhafen to work up until mid-February.[24] Steinbrinck returned to France in April where she was based at La Pallice. There she was primarily occupied with escorting returning commerce raiders, warships and supply ships through the Bay of Biscay to bases in France. These included the raider Thor on 22 April, the supply ship Nordland, and the fleet oiler Ermland in late May. The heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen was escorted to Brest in early June after separating from the battleship Bismarck during Operation Rheinübung. By the late summer, Steinbrinck was well overdue for a refit and was suffering from boiler problems but her refit was postponed to allow her to escort the raider Orion on 21 August. Her departure was delayed when she ran aground at the beginning of the next month and she did not depart for Germany until 6 September.[25] Sometime in 1941, the destroyer received a FuMO 21[Note 1] search radar that was mounted above her bridge.[26]

Steinbrinck only briefly operated in northern Norway where she participated in Operation Wunderland in August, where she and her sisters Eckoldt and Beitzen escorted the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer at the beginning and end of its mission to attack Soviet shipping in the Kara Sea. They also escorted the minelayer Ulm as it departed to lay a minefield off Cape Zhelaniya in mid-August. Steinbrinck ran aground at the beginning of September and was sent home after temporary repairs were made at Trondheim. The ship returned to Norway in January 1943 where she was slightly damaged by a practice torpedo fired by the submarine U-703. In early March she escorted Scharnhorst through the Skaggerak to Trondheim in heavy weather that washed two men overboard. By mid-month, Steinbrinck was the flagship of Captain (Kapitän zur See), commander of the 5th Destroyer Flotilla.[27]

In September the ship participated in Operation Zitronella, ferrying troops of the 349th Grenadier Regiment to destroy Norwegian facilities on the island of Spitzbergen, together with the battleships Tirpitz and Scharnhorst, escorted by eight other destroyers. After unloading her troops, she bombarded targets on the island until her fire main broke from the shock of shooting and partially flooded one of her compartments. While successful, the operation was primarily intended to boost the morale of the ships stationed in the Arctic when fuel shortages limited their activities and the Allies reestablished the bases five weeks later. Steinbrinck and two other destroyers escorted the pocket battleship Lützow back to Germany in September and returned to Narvik. On 25 November she was ordered to return to Germany for an overhaul, but accidentally collided with a small Norwegian steamer en route later that night. The collision severely damaged her bow and she had to sail slowly to Trondheim for emergency repairs lest the forward bulkhead collapse. The ship then received temporary repairs in Oslo before departing for Germany on 18 December.[28]

After her refit was completed on 18 January 1944, Steinbrinck and her sister Theodor Riedel spent the first half of the year laying minefields at the entrance to the Skaggerak and escorting convoys to and from Norway. Sometime in 1944, the ship had her radar replaced by a FuMO 24 search radar and her foremast was rebuilt in a goal-post shape to allow the 6-by-2-meter (19.7 ft × 6.6 ft) antenna to fully rotate. A FuMO 63 K Hohentwiel radar replaced the searchlight on its platform abaft the rear funnel. On 3 May the ship passed through the Kiel Canal en route to Hamburg for a lengthy refit. While in the dockyard, she was struck by a bomb in the diesel generator room on 18 June. Despite the extent of the damage, the dockyard reported that her refit would be completed as scheduled on 20 November. On 4 November another bomb detonated alongside Steinbrinck and caused extensive flooding and shock damage from the explosion. The ship was patched up and towed to Wesermünde for more thorough repairs, but her completion was seriously delayed. By 1 April 1945, only a single engine was operable and the Kriegsmarine made the decision to strip her crew for combat duties ashore after she was moved to Cuxhaven. She was still there in May when the Germans surrendered.[29]

The ship was moved to Wilhelmshaven over the summer under British control while the division of the surviving warships was decided among the victorious Allies. While this was being argued the ships were overhauled with a small maintenance crew aboard to preserve their value. The Allied Tripartite Commission allocated Steinbrinck to the Soviet Union at the end of 1945 and she sailed for Libau on 2 January 1946.[30] She was commissioned into the Soviet Navy under the name Pylky (Russian: Пылкий) and assigned to the Soviet 4th Fleet, based at Rostock, through 1948. Renamed PK3-2, she served as a barracks ship until 19 February 1958, when she was struck from the list. On 18 April 1958, she was sold for scrap and broken up afterwards.[31]