1986 Leibniz Prize of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
1988 Otto-Bayer-Prize (with Johann Deisenhofer)
1988 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (with Johann Deisenhofer and Robert Huber)
2008 Keilin Medal of the British Biochemical Society
Honorary doctorates of the Universities of Bologna, Wuerzburg and Heraklion
Honorary and visiting professorships of the Imperial College (London), IIT Madras at Chennai, IIT Mumbai, Tongji University Shanghai, Jiaotong University Xian, Tsinghua University Beijing, Sichuan University Chengdu, Tianjin University, Jilin University Changchun, Escuela Superior Polytecnica del Litoral Guayaquil
Member or foreign member of the following academies: Leopoldina, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Rheinisch-Westfälische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschapen, Chinese Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences (U.S.), Royal Society London