Luchs was the fourth of six Type 24 torpedo boats built for the German Navy (initially called the Reichsmarine and then renamed as the Kriegsmarine in 1935) during the 1920s.

[4] As built, the Type 24s mounted three 10.5 cm (4.1 in) SK C/28[Note 1] guns, one forward and two aft of the superstructure, numbered one through three from bow to stern.

The 2nd Destroyer Flotilla, Luchs and the torpedo boat Seeadler escorted the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper during the initial stages of the sortie on 18 February before patrolling the Skaggerak until the 20th.

[9] During the Invasion of Norway in April 1940, the boat was assigned to Group 4 under Kapitän zur See (Captain) Friedrich Rieve on the light cruiser Karlsruhe, tasked to capture Kristiansand.

With only his forward guns able to bear and his ships loaded with troops, Rieve ordered them to turn away and lay a smoke screen to cover their withdrawal at 05:45.

Most of their bombs fell outside the fortifications, but one blew up the western ammunition dump and another near the signal station, killing two men and cutting most external communication lines.

Encouraged by sight of the blast from the ammunition dump and the numerous hits all over the island on which the fortress was built, Rieve ordered his ships to make another try at 05:55, this time at an angle so that all guns could bear.

Accuracy for both sides was better this time, but no German ship was damaged and only a couple of shells from Karlsruhe landed inside the fort, wounding several gunners.

This caused the Norwegians to think that they were being saved by Allied ships and their guns did not open fire so the Germans landed without resistance and occupied the defenses beginning around 10:45.

After the heavy cruiser Lützow had been crippled by a British submarine off the Danish coast on 11 April, Luchs, Greif and Seeadler, among other ships, arrived the following morning to render assistance.

[12] On 26 July Luchs and her sister, Iltis, sortied from Stavanger, Norway, to meet with the crippled Gneisenau en route from Trondheim to Kiel for repairs.