[1] In 1907, Luther was elected to the Magdeburg city council where he increased the area assigned to Schreber garden tenfold and litigated against the regional potash industry for polluting the drinking water.

During the Revolution he managed to convince the revolutionary workers' and soldiers' councils to cooperate with the city administration and to accept the mayor's leading role.

[1][3] During the creation of the cabinet of Wilhelm Cuno in November 1922, Luther was offered the Reichswirtschaftsministerium (Economic Affairs) and the Reichsinnenministerium (Interior) but he refused both.

Luther remained in this office in the cabinet of Gustav Stresemann, focussing on ensuring food supplies for those groups of the population hardest hit by inflation.

The restrictive monetary policy by Hjalmar Schacht at the Reichsbank helped to stabilize the currency, as did steps taken by Luther to close the budget deficit.

On the spending side, Luther managed a drastic cut in personnel costs – by reducing the number of Reich employees by almost 25% over four months, a freeze on promotions and fixing public salaries at a level lower than that of 1913.

[1] After the Reichstag elections of December 1924 the parties supporting the minority Marx cabinet were unable to agree on whether the coalition should be extended to include those on the left (SPD) or those on the right (DNVP), president Friedrich Ebert on 9 January 1925 asked the independent Luther to form a government.

[1] When Ebert died on 28 February, Luther temporarily assumed the role of acting head of state pending the election of a successor.

[1] During his relatively short period in office, Luther and his cabinet managed to accomplish the passage of several important laws and international treaties.

In foreign policy, the cabinet negotiated the Treaty of Locarno with the UK, Belgium, France and Italy (October 1925), which paved the way for Germany's membership in the League of Nations (September 1926).

The ministers of the DNVP left the cabinet in protest over Locarno, forcing Luther to set up a new government that took office in January 1926.

[5] Luther voluntarily decided to resign after a Reichstag majority censured him on 12 May 1926 after he had asked Hindenburg to issue the presidential Flaggen-Verordnung (5 May 1926), which ordered German embassies and consulates to display not just the official black-red-gold Reichsflagge but also the black-white-red Handelsflagge (trade flag).

The institution worked on a reform of the federal structure of the Reich, notably the problem of the dominant position of Prussia compared to the other Länder.

Nicholas Murray Butler, Columbia's president, rejected student appeals to cancel the invitation, calling the request "illiberal" and citing the need for academic freedom.

In 1952–1955, Luther was the chairman of the committee of experts on the territorial restructuring of the Federal Republic of Germany (Sachverständigen-Ausschuß für die Neugliederung des Bundesgebiets).