Completed in 1937, two years before the start of World War II, the ship served as a flagship and spent most of her time training, although she did participate in the occupation of Memel in early 1939.

Several days after the start of the war in September 1939, Z1 Leberecht Maass and another destroyer unsuccessfully attacked Polish ships in the naval base on the Hel Peninsula.

In mid-February 1940, while proceeding into the North Sea to attack British fishing trawlers (Operation Wikinger), the ship was bombed by a patrolling German bomber that damaged her steering.

Design work on the Type 34-class destroyers began in 1932, despite the 800-long-ton (810 t) limit imposed by the Versailles Treaty that had ended World War I.

The design work appears to have been rushed and not well-thought out as the short forecastle and lack of flare at the bow compromised the ships' seakeeping ability[1] and their stability was inadequate.

[2] The only real innovative part of the design, the high-pressure boilers, were an over-complicated system that received almost no shipboard testing before being installed in the Type 34s and frequently broke down throughout the life of the ships.

[9] As the first ship of her class to be completed, Leberecht Maass became the flagship of the Leader of Torpedo-boats (Führer der Torpedoboote (FdT)) on 1 May and spent much of her first year training in the eastern Baltic Sea, before making a port visit in Gothenburg, Sweden, in early April 1938.

[11][9] In December, Leberecht Maass, together with her sisters Z2 Georg Thiele, Z3 Max Schultz, and Z4 Richard Beitzen, sailed to the area of Iceland to evaluate her seaworthiness in a North Atlantic winter with her new bow.

On 23–24 March 1939, the ship was one of the destroyers that escorted Adolf Hitler aboard the heavy cruiser Deutschland to occupy Memel.

Afterwards, she participated in the fleet exercise in the western Mediterranean, as the flagship of Konteradmiral Günther Lütjens, and visited Ceuta and Ría de Arousa in Spain before departing for Germany on 13 May.

After its completion, Leberecht Maass helped to lay defensive minefields in the North Sea and Lütjens transferred his flag to Z21 Wilhelm Heidkamp, the ship being assigned to the 2nd Destroyer Flotilla (2.

They believed that sinking or capturing the trawlers would force the British to spread themselves thin to defend the fishing fleet and might result in some useful auxiliary ships for the Kriegsmarine.

[17] Loaded with prize crews, Leberecht Maass and five other destroyers, Max Schultz, Richard Beitzen, Z6 Theodor Riedel, Z13 Erich Koellner and Z16 Friedrich Eckoldt, sailed on 22 February.

Leberecht Maass was hit by at least one bomb, lost her steering, and broke in half, sinking with the loss of 280 of her crew, including the ship's captain.