Early career

In 1945, he became a member of the FDGB (Free German Trade Union Federation) and was a member of the factory trade union leadership from 1946 to 1950. In February 1946, he joined the SPD (later SED), and in 1948, he joined the FDJ (Free German Youth).

In 1950, he attended the local SED Party School in Meißen, where he worked as an assistant and teacher until 1953. Afterward, from 1953 to 1955, he served as the deputy and acting principal of the SED Bezirk Cottbus Party School.^[2]

Bezirk Cottbus SED career

From 1954 to 1960, he pursued a distance learning program to obtain a diploma in Social Sciences at the "Karl Marx" Party Academy. From 1955 to 1961, he worked as a staff member and department head of the SED in Bezirk Cottbus. From August 1961 to February 1964, he served as the First Secretary of the SED in Senftenberg and as a district council delegate.^[1]

From 1964 to 1966, he studied at the University of Economics in Berlin, earning a degree in economics. Subsequently, from April 1966 to June 1969, he was the Secretary for Organization and Cadre Work and Second Secretary of the SED in Bezirk Cottbus.^[2]

On 1 June 1969, Walde rose to the position of the First Secretary of the SED in Bezirk Cottbus, Albert Stief being seriously ill.^[3]

Walde's tenure was viewed ambivalently. While he lived a modest lifestyle for a top SED functionary and was viewed as sticking up for the districts in his Bezirk, he was known for being a hardliner when it came to military service and those refusing to do so. When it came to art and culture, he was orthodox and clueless, something he later admitted.^[3]

Walde was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit in 1967, 1969 and 1974, the Karl Marx Order in 1976, and the Hero of Labour title in 1986.^[4]

SED Central Committee

From 19 June 1971 (VIII. Party Congress) to December 1989, he was a member of the Central Committee of the SED. From November 1971 to 1989, Walde was a delegate of the Bezirk Cottbus Council and a member of the Volkskammer. From 22 May 1976 (IX. Party Congress) until his removal from this position in November 1989, he was a candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the SED,^[2] the de facto highest leadership body in East Germany, the Bezirk Cottbus being an important centre for coal and energy.^[3]

Unlike other First Secretaries such as Werner Eberlein, Walde did not rise further to become a full member, most likely due to him being a former member of the SPD, a glass ceiling in a party long dominated by former communists.^[5]

Peaceful Revolution

During the Wende, on 9 November 1989, the SED in Cottbus removed him from the position of First Secretary and installed reformer Wolfgang Thiel as his successor. Walde consequently resigned from the Politburo he had just been reelected to. He was removed by his party from the Volkskammer a week later, on 16 November 1989.

On 20 January 1990, he was expelled from the now-renamed SED-PDS party in an unanimous vote, the party Central Arbitration Commission citing personal enrichment and his energy policy mismanagement.^[6] Nevertheless, Walde was contrite that he can no longer be "useful to the party of the working class".^[7]