came over it in head seas. The ship then participated in the August 1938 Fleet Review and the following fleet exercise. Korvettenkapitän Gerhard Wagner relieved Schmidt in October. In December, Leberecht Maass, together with her sisters Z2 Georg Thiele, Z3 Max Schultz, and Z4 Richard Beitzen, sailed to the area of Iceland to evaluate her seaworthiness in a North Atlantic winter with her new bow. On 23–24 March 1939, the ship was one of the destroyers that escorted Adolf Hitler aboard the heavy cruiser to occupy Memel. Korvettenkapitän Fritz Bassenge assumed command of Leberecht Maass the following month. Afterwards, she participated in the fleet exercise in the western Mediterranean, as the flagship of Konteradmiral Günther Lütjens, and visited Ceuta and Ría de Arousa in Spain before departing for Germany on 13 May. The initial task of the Kriegsmarine when Hitler declared war on Poland on 1 September was to blockade the Polish coast. As such, they deployed three light cruisers and ten destroyers, including Leberecht Maass, to accomplish this mission. Leberecht Maass evaded an attack by the submarine on the first day of the war. It later became quickly apparent that the Kriegsmarine had deployed too many ships off the Polish coast, and so the cruisers were withdrawn. Two days later, the ship and Z9 Wolfgang Zenker were ordered to investigate the ships in the naval base at Hel. They spotted the Polish destroyer and the minelayer and engaged both ships at a range around . German fire was ineffective, but the Polish return fire was more accurate and forced the German destroyers to make evasive maneuvers and to lay a smoke screen to throw off the aim of the Polish gunners. Leberecht Maass was hit by a shell from the coast defense battery defending the base at 06:57, which knocked out power to No. 2 gun, disabled its shell hoists, killed four crewmen and wounded another four. The ship fired 77 rounds of 12.7 cm ammunition during the battle. The following day, she sailed to Swinemünde to have her damage repaired, a process that took until 10 September as it included repairs to the ship's boiler tubes. After its completion, Leberecht Maass helped to lay defensive minefields in the North Sea and Lütjens transferred his flag to Z21 Wilhelm Heidkamp, the ship being assigned to the 2nd Destroyer Flotilla (2. Zerstörer Flotille). She began a previously scheduled refit in