After World War II he passed his Abitur and studied law at the Universities of Bonn and Cologne where he obtained a PhD.

When Chancellor Willy Brandt made way for Helmut Schmidt in 1977, Lambsdorff was appointed West German Federal Minister of Economics in the new government and served from 1977 until 1982.

In 1987, Lambsdorff became the first West German cabinet minister to be indicted while in office[4] when he was forced to resign over allegations of corruption in the so-called Flick Affair.

[5] On 16 February 1987, he was convicted by the Bonn State Court on lesser charges, namely tax evasion on donations to political parties.

In a surprise decision, however, a majority of the FDP parliamentary group rejected her nomination and voted instead to name Justice Minister Klaus Kinkel to head the Foreign Ministry.

[14] In 1999 Lambsdorff was appointed as the federal envoy to the negotiations for the compensation of the victims of forced labor in Germany during World War II by Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, which led to the establishment of the Foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility and Future".

[19] Lambsdorff led the FDP to adopt the market-oriented "Kiel Theses" in 1977; it rejected the Keynesian emphasis on consumer demand, and proposed to reduce social welfare spending, and try to introduce policies to stimulate production and facilitate jobs.

Before the August 1919 abolition of nobility as a legal class, titles preceded the full name when given (Graf Helmuth James von Moltke).

), can be used, but are regarded as a dependent part of the surname, and thus come after any given names (Helmuth James Graf von Moltke).