• Operation Chopper (1941)

Date of birth:

December 5th, 1894 (Straßburg/Elsaß-Lothringen, Germany)

Date of death:

April 8th, 1945 (Groß Eilstorf/Hannover, Germany)

Buried on:

War Graves Walsrode

Nationality:

German

Scheurlen entered the Imperial Navy in 1912 as a cadet. He received his early training aboard the cruiser Victoria Louise and at the Naval Academy in Mürwik. During the First World War he served first on the coastal defence ship Odin and later on the battlecruiser Von der Tann, taking part in the Battle of Jutland in 1916. By the end of the war he had risen to Oberleutnant zur See and commanded small vessels such as minesweepers and auxiliary craft.

Remaining in the Reichsmarine after 1918, Scheurlen built a career as a specialist in naval artillery and coastal defence. He commanded minesweepers and tenders, served as an instructor, and by the 1930s had advanced to senior staff and training positions. In 1938 he was promoted to Kapitän zur See and given command of the cruiser Königsberg. Shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War he took charge of the Marine Flak and Coastal Artillery School at Swinemünde, reflecting his expertise in shore-based defence.

During the war Scheurlen held a series of important commands. He was involved in preparations for Operation Sea Lion, the planned invasion of Britain, and later directed naval landing operations in the Crimea, overseeing troop crossings of the Kerch Strait in 1942–43. Promoted to Konteradmiral in 1942 and to Vizeadmiral in 1944, he became Küstenbefehlshaber Deutsche Bucht, responsible for defending the German Bight, and later commanded naval forces along the French Mediterranean coast. His career thus spanned both seaborne operations and the increasingly vital task of coastal defence against Allied raids and air attacks.

In the final months of the war, as Germany’s naval power collapsed, Scheurlen was ordered to raise the 2nd Marine Infantry Division, an improvised formation of naval personnel, Hitler Youth, and foreign auxiliaries, intended to fight as ground troops against the advancing Allies. Poorly trained and equipped, the division was committed to action near Bremen in April 1945. On 7 April, while travelling near Groß Eilstorf, Scheurlen was severely wounded in a low-level Allied air attack on his staff car and died the following day, 8 April 1945, at the age of fifty

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• - PATZWALL, K. & SCHERZER, V., Das Deutsche Kreuz 1941-1945, Band II, Verlag Klaus D. Patzwall, Norderstedt, 2001.
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