Emden made several overseas cruises and according to Whitley the captains were ordered to conduct cruiser warfare if war broke out between Germany and another power.This did happen. In 1939, IIRC all or at least two of the threee pocket battleships were overseas.
The pocket battleships conducted neutrality patrols during the Spanish Civil War, but AFAIK that was as far from Germany as they got. The newer light cruisers conducted neutrality patrols of Spain too, which revealed the vulnerability of their lightly built hulls (to fit the cruiser limitations of the Treaty of Versailles) to storm damage.
IIRC one of the Italian heavy cruisers was badly damaged in a storm while conducting a neutrality patrol too. It had to go into a dry dock at Gibraltar for emergency repairs. When they were completed the dock was filled with 10,000 tons of water and it didn't float, proving that the Italian heavy cruisers broke the Washington Treaty. Actually they didn't, but the dockyard authorities did measure the amount of water it took to re-float it.