* Commander, Navy Group North (1940-1943) * Commander Navy Group East (1939-1940) * Commander, Naval Region Baltic Sea (1938-1939) * Fleet commander of the German Navy (1936-1938) * Commander German naval forces, Spanish Civil War (1936-1937) * Commander of Liners (1935-1936)[N 4]
Contender for the position of Navy Commander-in-Chief. After the post went to Karl Dönitz, retired from the Navy in May 1943. Killed in an allied air raid in 1945
* Commander, Navy Group West (1943) * Commanding Admiral of France (1942) * Commander, Navy Group South (1941-1942) * Inspector of Naval education (1940-1941) * Fleet commander of the German Navy (1939-1940) * Commander of Battleships (1938-1939) * Commander German naval forces, Spanish Civil War (1937-1938)
Placed on the inactive officer list in 1943 Recalled twice for special duty (1944-1945) Held as a prisoner of war (1945-1947)
* Commander, Naval Forces Norway (1943-1945) * Commander of Battleships (1941-1943) * Chief of Staff, Navy Group West (1939-1941) * Commanding Officer, Scharnhorst (1939)
While serving as fleet commander, embarked onboard the battleship Bismarck in order to serve as the operational flag officer while Captain Ernst Lindemann served as the ship's commander. Lütjens was subsequently killed during the battle of the Denmark Strait, making him the only Kriegsmarine fleet commander to die in active combat against an enemy