Adolf Friedrich Schiel (19 December 1858 – 8 August 1903)[1] was an officer in the South African Republic's military forces during the Anglo-Boer war of 1899-1902.

[2] Born in Frankfurt-am-Main on 19 December 1858,[1] Schiel was conscripted into the Prussian Army, serving as a cavalry trooper.

In 1898 he was commissioned a lieutenant colonel and charged with supervising construction of a fortress adjacent to Johannesburg Prison.

On the eve of war Schiel was given permission to form a Boer Commando composed, primarily, of his former prisons staff.

[5] He returned to Germany following the war where he published his autobiography, 23 Jahre Sturm und Sonnenschein in Südafrika ("23 Years of Storm and Sunshine in South Africa"), and later died on 8 August 1903 in Bad Reichenhall of the wounds he had received at Elandslaagte.