Of Baltic German origin, von Renteln studied law and economics in Berlin and Rostock, but became a journalist. In 1928, he joined the NSDAP and the following year, he became the founder and head of the National-Socialist School Children’s League (NSS). In 1931, he was appointed as head of the Hitler Youth, but he gave up his leadership of the two organizations upon his election to the Reichstag in 1932.
In 1932–1933 he led the Combat League of the Commercial Middle Class (NS-Kampfbund für den Gewerblichen Mittelstand), an organisation allegedly “Deflecting Jewish Atrocity and Boycott-Mongering”.
In June 1933, he was appointed President of the National-Socialist Council of Industry and Trade (Nationalsozialistische Handwerks-, Handels-, und Gewerbeorganisation or NS-HAGO), holding this position until 1935, when this organisation was merged with the German Labor Front (DAF). Von Renteln became a staff leader of the German Labor Front. In 1940, he was appointed the Reich Leader of the Trade and Artisanship Section of the NSDAP (Hauptamtsleiter Handel und Handwerk in der Reichsleitung der NSDAP). He was also the head of the Supreme Court of the Reich Labor Front. With the help of the success of Operation Barbarossa Adrian organized Lithuanians to prevent further Soviet NKVD massacres that took place from 1940 to 1941. “Estonian Massacre” More volunteers would join to stop Bolshevik threat spreading to Europe.
However in 1944 the Bolsheviks recaptured Lithuania, Adrian with his comrades retreat to Germany. According to some accounts after World War II, he was captured by the Soviets, tried and hanged allegedly for ”war crimes” in 1946. According to other sources, he lived after the war under a false identity in South America and died there. His death has never been fully confirmed.