In April 1940, now a Vizeadmiral (vice admiral), he was given temporary command of the entire German surface fleet during the initial landing phase of Operation Weserübung, the invasions of Denmark and Norway.

[4] He spent his initial year on Freya (9 May 1907 – 1 April 1908) for his practical training on board and his first world cruise, before attending an officers course at the German Imperial Naval Academy in Kiel.

[17] His successor at the Marinepersonalamt Conrad Patzig [de], described Lütjens as a dedicated naval officer who put his service to the nation ahead of the ruling party.

[20] On 1 September 1939 Germany invaded Poland and two days later, Lütjens sailing aboard his flagship, Z1 Leberecht Maass and Z9 Wolfgang Zenker took part in an attack on the Polish ships Gryf and Wicher in Gdynia harbour.

The Poles replied effectively and forced the German destroyers to make evasive manoeuvres and to lay a smoke screen to throw off the aim of the Polish gunners.

[22] In April 1940, during the invasion of Denmark and Norway (Operation Weserübung), he served as Vizeadmiral (vice admiral), commanding the distant cover forces in the North Sea—which consisted of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.

[27] It may have been possible for him to turn on and sink Renown by attacking from different directions, using Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, but the accompanying British destroyers were well placed to join the fight had he done so.

The Trondheim force was led by the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper who detached the German destroyers Z11 Bernd von Arnim and Z18 Hans Lüdemann to search for a man that had been washed over board.

On 20 June 1940 he sailed in company with Admiral Hipper, toward the North Sea in the hope of diverting attention from Scharnhorst while it made the perilous trek from Norway to Germany.

While the Luftwaffe engaged the Royal Air Force (RAF) in what became known as the Battle of Britain to clear the skies the German naval command began planning for an assault in southern England.

Raeder agreed but the plan was rubbished by technical experts who argued the old ships were too prone to capsizing and their stationary posture was too vulnerable and their armament too weak to do the job effectively.

German naval strategy now turned to thoughts of siege and destroying Britain's shipping lanes which supplied the country from overseas and in particular North America.

[38] On 22 January 1941, the renewed mission was delayed for several days owing to the sighting of British ships near the Norwegian coast and the inability of submarine chasers and destroyers to escort them to the Arctic Ocean.

On 22 February, after seven days of fruitless searching some 500 nautical miles east of Newfoundland, German radar picked up five cargo-empty ships from a westbound convoy sailing without escort towards American ports.

Lütjens used his radio for the first time since 8 February and commanded the supply ships Esso Hamburg and Schlettstadt to meet him near the Azores so he could replenish stocks.

For various reasons, Tirpitz and the two battlecruisers could not be made ready for the operation, so it proceeded with only Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, under the command of Helmuth Brinkmann.

[62] What depressed Lütjens's already darkened mood was Ernst Lindemann, Bismarck's captain, had been told by Karl Topp of the Marineamt, that several war games were run to see if Tirpitz could reach the Atlantic undetected and that at every turn and under every circumstance, the ship was discovered.

Although mistaken, it appears to have influenced Lütjens' decision not to loiter and wait for events to unfold, but to proceed with a breakout immediately which would not permit time for refueling prior to reaching the Atlantic.

While the ice-flooded regions of northern Iceland and the Denmark Strait could be easily patrolled by the enemy, as believed by Carls, it offered lower-visibility conditions, giving him much needed cover.

[74] Lütjens remained unaware that the British were tracking him until 23 May, when his ships encountered heavy cruisers HMS Norfolk and Suffolk, amidst the Greenland ice pack.

Although shots were fired, no serious damage resulted to either side, and the outgunned British cruisers quickly withdrew, though they remained within radar range and continued to shadow the German ships.

Confronted with enemy combat vessels, Lütjens turned away, to gain time to think and plan a response to his opponents who were clearly attempting to engage him.

He ordered his chief yeoman to signal to Prinz Eugen to open fire on the lead enemy ship, but not Bismarck, much to the exasperation of Captain Lindemann, who had the prospect of suffering another disagreement with the Admiral.

At 08:01, once again without consulting Lindemann or Brinkmann, he radioed the Naval High Command his intent to sail to St. Nazaire and detach his heavy cruiser for commerce operations.

The authors of the German official history have commented it would be unjust to criticise him for being sympathetic to the National Socialist cause or to mark him as an Admiral who saw operations through to the end regardless of the outcome.

The Befehlshaber der U-Boote (U-boat Commander-in-Chief) Dönitz had ordered U-556, under the command of Captain Lieutenant Herbert Wohlfarth, to pick up Bismarck's war diary.

Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, their daughter Annemarie was born on 27 August 1939, and less than a month after Lütjens' death, his wife gave birth to their fourth child, Peter.

[111] Choosing the name "Lütjens" for the newly commissioned destroyer was not without controversy, but the Minister of Defence Gerhard Schröder wanted to break the taboo surrounding the heroes of World War II who were not Nazis but who were not associated with the 20 July plot, the failed assassination of Adolf Hitler.

[111] Lütjens' name had previously been cleared by the German Armed Forces Military History Research Office (Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt or MGFA), formerly in Freiburg im Breisgau.

"[111] Following the christening an American worker at the Bath Iron Works approached and asked the attending German journalists "do you only have Nazi heroes back home in Germany?"