He studied natural sciences and agriculture at the Universities of Breslau and Heidelberg, obtaining his doctorate at the latter institution in 1888.
Within the next twelve years he participated in three exploratory expeditions (1889, 1896 and 1899–1900) to Kaiser-Wilhelmsland (part of German New Guinea).
[1][2] Some of the specimens that he collected were further examined by Viktor Ferdinand Brotherus and Paul Christoph Hennings.
[6] The genus Gertrudia (formerly of the family Flacourtiaceae) was named after Lauterbach's wife, Gertrud Fuchs-Henel.
[7] In 1897 Anton Reichenow named the yellow-breasted bowerbird (Chlamydera lauterbachi) in his honor.