German battleship Scharnhorst was a German capital ship which saw action in World War II and was sunk at the Battle of the North Cape.

Scharnhorst may also refer to:

Ships

  • , a passenger steamer built in 1904
  • SMS Scharnhorst (1907), an armored cruiser of World War I, sunk at the Battle of the Falkland Islands
  • , a German ocean liner, eventually purchased by Japan and converted into the escort carrier Shin'yō
  • Scharnhorst, formerly , a ship of the West German Bundesmarine from 1959 until 1980

Other

  • Gerhard von Scharnhorst (1755–1813), a Prussian general
  • 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 travels faster between two closely spaced conducting plates than in a normal vacuum