After working as a high ranking civil servant at the Ministry of the Interior of the German Federal State of Lower Saxony, Lauritzen became mayor of Kassel.

[1] After the election to the Bundestag in 1966, Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger appointed Lauritzen as Federal Minister of Housing and Urban Development.

[2] His predecessor at the Transport Ministry, Georg Leber, triggered press and public opposition by implementing a blanket 100 km/h speed limit on major roads, but not on Autobahnen.

In support of his predecessor's action, Lauritzen in August 1972 repeated his conviction that speed limits served the cause of traffic safety.

[3] During the 1973 oil crisis Lauritzen took the opportunity to implement a general speed limit of 100 km/h (subsequently withdrawn) on German autobahns.