[4] Rauhut et al. (1998) noted that the remains may represent a juvenile or subadult individual based on the presence of only two fused sacrals and the fact that the neurocentral sutures are still visible in the vertebrae.

[6] The specimens of Liliensternus, designated as the syntype series HMN BM.R.2175, were recovered near Großer Gleichberg in the Trossingen Formation of the Middle Keuper Group in Thuringia, Germany, together with remains of Ruehleia.

The syntypes were discovered by Count Hugo Rühle von Lilienstern in the winter of 1932/1933[8] in marlstone (lime-rich mudstone) deposited in the Norian stage of the Late Triassic period, approximately 228 to 208 million years ago.

[5][10] Sander (1992) referred additional material to Liliensternus, which was thought to have been collected in 1961 grey/green marlstone from the Löwenstein Formation in Aargau, Switzerland, which is considered to also be from the Norian stage of the Late Triassic period.

The only material assigned to this genus from later strata was discovered in 1913 in blue claystone from the Rhaetian stage of the Late Triassic, in the Trossingen Formation from Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany, approximately 208 to 201 million years ago.

The Liliensternus specimens remained in Hugo Rühle von Lilienstern's castle until 1969 when they were transferred to the collection of the Natural History Museum of Berlin, their present location.

A second species named in 1993 by Cuny and Galton for fragmentary remains found in France, Liliensternus airelensis, which had an extra pair of cervical pleurocoels, was in 2007 reassigned to a separate genus, Lophostropheus.

The following evolutionary tree illustrates a synthesis of the relationships of the early theropod groups compiled by Hendrickx et al. in 2015, including the position of Liliensternus in which all studies concur.