The SS Scharnhorst was a German passenger liner and mail ship launched in 1904. The ship was laid down at the Joh. C. Tecklenborg shipyard in Geestemünde, Germany, for the Norddeutscher Lloyd shipping company.
Scharnhorst belonged to a class of eleven steamers known as the Generals-class. Her sisterships were the steamships Zieten, Roon, Seydlitz, Gneisenau, Bülow, York, Kleist, Goeben, Lützow and Derfflinger, all built for the German Imperial Mail Service to Australia and the Far East. Occasionally these ships were run on the North Atlantic service of the Lloyd.