SS Scharnhorst (1904)

SS Scharnhorst was a German ocean liner and mail ship launched in 1904.

History
The ship was built at the Joh. C. Tecklenborg shipyard in Geestemünde, Germany, for the Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL) shipping company. Scharnhorst was one of a class of eleven mail steamships called the "General"-class. Her sister ships were Zieten, Roon, Seydlitz, Gneisenau, Bülow, Yorck, Kleist, Goeben, Lützow and Derfflinger, all built for the German Imperial Mail Service to Australia and the Far East. Occasionally these ships ran on NDL's North Atlantic service.

On 19 December 1908, Scharnhorst arrived in New York harbor, after having been delayed by inclement weather. Two passengers died on the trip, one killed by a wave that smashed him into the railing. Both passengers were buried the next day.

When the First World War started she had made 19 round trips to Australia, seven to the Far East and five to the USA. She was the only ship of her class to be in Germany in 1914, and was used for some time in 1917 and 1918 as a troopship in the Baltic Sea.

In 1919 she was seized by France. In 1920 she was transferred to Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, who renamed her La Bourdonnais, and used her until 1931. In 1934 she was broken up in Genoa.

Literature

 * Edwin Drechsel: Norddeutscher Lloyd Bremen, 1857–1970; History, Fleet, Ship Mails, vol. 1. Vancouver: Cordillera, 1995