Scharnhorst

Scharnhorst may refer to:

• Gerhard von Scharnhorst (1755–1813), a Prussian general

• Five ships of Germany named after the general:
  • SS Scharnhorst (1904), a passenger steamer built in 1904
  • SMS Scharnhorst (1907), an armored cruiser of World War I, sunk at the Battle of the Falkland Islands
  • SS Scharnhorst (1934), a German ocean liner, eventually purchased by Japan and converted into the escort carrier Shinyo
  • German battleship Scharnhorst, a German capital ship, alternatively described as a battleship and battlecruiser, saw action in World War II and was sunk at the Battle of the North Cape
  • Scharnhorst, formerly HMS Mermaid (U30), a ship of the West German Bundesmarine from 1959 until 1980

• Scharnhorst Order, the highest medal awarded to the East German National People's Army
• Scharnhorst, Lower Saxony, a municipality in the district of Celle, Lower Saxony, Germany
• Scharnhorst effect, a hypothetical phenomenon in which light signals travel faster between two closely spaced conducting plates than in a normal vacuum