[1] He began his maritime career as a cabin boy on a trading brig before enlisting into the Prussian Navy in 1849.

He served aboard the steamship Danzig, partaking in the Battle of Tres Forcas against the Barbary pirates in August of 1856.

[2] In 1874, Schleinitz was made commander of the frigate Gazelle, and embarked on an astronomical voyage to the Kerguelen Islands to study the Transit of Venus.

The flowering plant genus Schleinitzia was named in his honor by German-Jewish botanist Otto Warburg in 1891.

[4] Schleinitz's term as governor of New Guinea ended on 1 March 1888, and shortly thereafter retired from naval service on account of poor health.