 Admiral Scheer then sailed northwards , breaking through the Denmark Strait on 26 – 27 March and evading the cruisers Fiji and Nigeria . She reached Bergen , Norway on 30 March , where she spent a day in the Grimstadfjord . A destroyer escort joined the ship for the voyage to Kiel , which they reached on 1 April . In the course of her raiding operation , she had steamed over 46 @,@ 000 nautical miles ( 85 @,@ 000 km ) and sank seventeen merchant ships for a total of 113 @,@ 223 GRT . She was by far the most successful German capital ship commerce raider of the entire war . After returning to Germany , Krancke left the ship and was replaced by KzS Wilhelm Meendsen @-@ Bohlken in June 1941 . The loss of the battleship Bismarck in May 1941 , and more importantly , the Royal Navy 's destruction of the German supply ship network in the aftermath of the Bismarck operation forced a planned Atlantic raiding operation for Admiral Scheer and her sister Lützow at the end of 1941 to be abandoned . On 4 – 8 September , Admiral Scheer was briefly moved to Oslo . There , on 5 and 8 September , No. 90 Squadron RAF , equipped with Boeing B @-@ 17 Flying Fortress bombers , mounted a pair of unsuccessful attacks on the ship . On 8 September , the ship left Oslo and returned to Swinemünde . 
