In 1544, Adolf, his brother Johann, and their half-brother King Christian III of Denmark, divided the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein.

Since he selected the part with the castle Gottorp, the line of the house Oldenburg created by him was called Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp.

Adolf participated in the Diet of Augsburg where he witnessed Emperor Charles V at the high point of his power.

On 17 December 1564 he married Christine, daughter of Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse, and had the following children: Duke Adolf is a character in Stefan Heym's 1981 book Ahasver (published in English as The Wandering Jew).

The Duke is shown in the midst of a night of lechery and drunkenness, charging Paul von Eitzen, Superintendent of the Lutheran church of the Gottorp share of Holstein and Schleswig, with creating "The Kingdom of God" in his duchy — i.e., imposing the newly minted Lutheran orthodoxy and persecuting "heretics" such as the Mennonites.