Karlsruhe's world cruise offered a rare chance to develop junior officers

Karlsruhe's cruise carried Lütjens and his cadets through the Azores, Trinidad, Cape Horn, the Pacific coast of the Americas, the Panama Canal, and ports in the United States and Spain. It was both a goodwill deployment and one of his few opportunities to train a sizeable body of young officers at sea. A photograph from the visit to Cali in Colombia is identified as the only known image of him making a version of the Nazi salute. Burkard von Müllenheim-Rechberg, later the most senior surviving officer from Bismarck, had been an officer cadet under him on this voyage. Overseas naval presence gave the cadets practical training at sea. Karlsruhe returned to Kiel on 15 June 1935. Soon afterward, Lütjens moved back into personnel work and the task of rebuilding the Kriegsmarine's officer corps. His promotion to rear admiral therefore followed only a short interval of large-ship command.