[3] After Hipper joined the German Navy in 1881 as a probationary sea cadet, he served on the sail-frigate SMS Niobe from April to September 1881.

[4] On 24 April, Hipper was assigned as a divisional drill officer; he was tasked with training recruits for the First Naval Battalion, based in Kiel.

This began a three-and-a-half-year stint serving as watch officer aboard several ships,[5] including the corvettes Stosch and Stein, the armored frigate Friedrich der Grosse, and the aviso Wacht.

[9] While aboard Wörth, Hipper was promoted to Senior Lieutenant and awarded the Bavarian National Defense Service Medal on 29 August 1895.

While serving on the Imperial yacht, Hipper was present for the trip to England for Queen Victoria's funeral in 1901 and the cruise to America the following year.

Leipzig departed for the East Asia Squadron in September 1906, at which point Hipper was transferred to command the new armored cruiser Friedrich Carl.

[17] On 1 October 1911, Hipper took command of the armored cruiser Yorck, along with the position as chief of staff for Rear Admiral Gustav Bachmann, the Deputy Flag Officer, Reconnaissance Forces.

Admiral Bachmann was promoted to Chief of the Baltic Station and Hipper took over as the commanding officer of the I Scouting Group on 1 October 1913.

The flotilla arrived off Great Yarmouth at daybreak the following morning and bombarded the port, while the light cruiser Stralsund laid a minefield.

On the way, a heavy fog covered the Heligoland Bight, so the ships were ordered to halt until visibility improved and they could safely navigate the defensive minefields.

[22] The Royal Navy had the capability to intercept and decode the German naval code, as a result of the capture of the light cruiser Magdeburg at the outbreak of the war.

Errors in signaling aboard the British ships and bad weather, however, allowed Hipper to escape the trap without incident.

Admiral Ingenohl was initially reluctant to attempt to destroy these forces, because the I Scouting Group was temporarily weakened while Von der Tann was in drydock for periodic maintenance.

Rear Admiral (German: Konteradmiral) Richard Eckermann, the Chief of Staff of the High Seas Fleet, insisted on the operation, and so Ingenohl relented and ordered Hipper to take his battlecruisers to the Dogger Bank.

Although they were unaware of the exact plans, the cryptographers of Room 40 were able to deduce that Hipper would be conducting an operation in the Dogger Bank area.

Hipper immediately turned his battlecruisers towards the gunfire, when, almost simultaneously, Stralsund spotted a large amount of smoke to the northwest of her position.

[28] Hipper later remarked: "The presence of such a large force indicated the proximity of further sections of the British Fleet, especially as wireless intercepts revealed the approach of 2nd Battlecruiser Squadron...

They were also reported by Blücher at the rear of the German line, which had opened fire on a light cruiser and several destroyers coming up from astern...

Beatty, in the stricken Lion, ordered the remaining battlecruisers to "Engage the enemy's rear," but signal confusion caused the ships to solely target Blücher, allowing Moltke, Seydlitz, and Derfflinger to escape.

He requested sick leave on 20 March, which was approved by Admiral Reinhard Scheer—who had replaced Pohl as fleet commander in January 1916— a week later on the 27th.

[37] That morning, at 02:00 CET, the I Scouting Group, which comprised the battlecruisers Lützow, Derfflinger, Seydlitz, Moltke, and Von der Tann, five light cruisers, and 30 torpedo boats, left the Jade estuary.

[39] At 16:00, the British and German battlecruiser forces encountered each other and began a running gun fight south, back towards Scheer's battle fleet.

[42] During the run to the north, Hipper's ships continued to engage both Beatty's battlecruisers and the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships of the 5th Battle Squadron.

"[52] By 22:15, Hipper was finally able to transfer to Moltke; he then ordered his ships to steam at 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph) to take up their station at the head of the German line.

[55] For his conduct in the battle, Hipper received Germany's highest military honor, the Pour le Mérite; it was awarded by the Kaiser on 5 June.

He was placed in command of a detachment of the High Seas Fleet, composed of two battlecruisers, eleven battleships, four light cruisers, and twelve torpedo boats, sent to Denmark to retrieve a pair of stranded U-boats in November 1916.

He was concurrently promoted to Admiral; Hipper took provisional control of the fleet in a ceremony held on the old battleship Kaiser Wilhelm II the day before.

[64] As Von der Tann and Derfflinger passed through the locks that separated Wilhelmshaven's inner harbor and roadstead, some 300 men from both ships climbed over the side and disappeared ashore.

[66] According to the terms of the Armistice, all five of Germany's battlecruisers and two of the three battle squadrons, along with a number of light cruisers and the most modern torpedo boats, were to be interned in Scapa Flow.

[72] During the chaos of the German revolution of 1918–1919, Hipper hid from radical revolutionaries by assuming a false name and moving frequently.