In early 1942, the two ships made a daylight dash up the English Channel from occupied France to Germany. In the engagement with HMS Glorious, the Scharnhorst scored one of the longest-range naval gunfire hits in history. During operations off Norway, the two ships engaged the British battlecruiser HMS Renown and sank the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious. The two ships participated in Operation Weserübung, the German invasion of Norway. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau operated together for much of the early portion of the Second World War, including sorties into the Atlantic to raid British merchant shipping. The two ships were laid down in 1935, launched in late 1936, and commissioned into the German fleet by early 1939. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were armed with nine 28-cm (11-inch) SK C/34 guns in three triple turrets, though there were plans to replace these weapons with six 38-cm (15-inch) SK C/34 guns in twin turrets. The two Scharnhorst-class battleships were the first capital ships built for the Kriegsmarine after the end of the First World War. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1980), and (Gröner, Erich. Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1922-1946. (Gardiner, Robert & Chesneau, Roger, eds. The Bismarck, Tirpitz, and Scharnhorst were sunk during the war and the Gneisenau was scuttled in Gotenhafen in 1945. The other four were canceled before construction began. Although two of them were laid down in mid-1939, they were canceled within two months, due to the outbreak of the Second World War that September.

In 1939, Plan Z was developed to rebuild the German navy, calling for the construction of six additional battleships of the H-39-class. Two Bismarck-class battleships followed in 1936, with the Bismarck being completed in 1940 and the Tirpitz in 1941.

The first new battleships built in Germany were the two Scharnhorst-class ships, the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau, in 1935. In 1935, the German government negotiated the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, which stipulated the German Kriegsmarine could rebuild to 35 percent of the strength of the Royal Navy.

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