The medal commemorates the legacy of Gerhard Johann David von Scharnhorst (1755-1813), a soldier in Hanoverian and Prussian service, military theorist, reformer and German patriot.

The sculptor Fritz Schulz, also of Berlin, produced the portrait of Scharnhorst that appears on the medal.

It was also presented to foreign military personnel, for example, to Marshal Viktor Georgiyevich Kulikov of the Soviet Union.

The order was always presented with an elaborately crafted document along with a one-time cash prize of 5,000 Marks.

They were: The Scharnhorst Order was worn on the left breast suspended from a pentagonal ribbon in the Russian style.