William Frederick Carl Nindemann (April 22, 1850 – May 6, 1913) was a German-born American Arctic explorer and recipient of the Congressional Silver Jeannette Medal.

[1] William Nindemann was born on April 22, 1850, in Gingst, on Rügen – Germany's biggest island, the part of the Province of Pomerania in the Kingdom of Prussia.

After the USS Jeannette sank in the ice and the party made it to the Lena Delta on the northern coast of Siberia, on October 9, 1881, Captain George W. De Long sent the two strongest members, Nindemann and Louis P. Noros to find aid for the starving crew.

[2] Taking a southern course, they wandered until October 21, when they were met by a native, who took them to Kumak Surka, where they sent a message through a Russian exile to George W. Melville—Jeannette's chief engineer—who afterward joined them at Bulun.

Nindemann invented a tong for the gaff of fore-and-aft rigged vessels, which was patented in 1883, and was the author of an 1885 pamphlet entitled A German Sailor's Journey to the North Pole, edited by Karl Knortz.