[4] Walz initially wanted to enter a hotel management school, but his mother didn't have the financial means, and so at 14 years old he began a hairdressing apprenticeship instead.

[1] Due to his relation with Dietrich, he was hired by popular hairdresser Ina Sailer to work in her beauty salon, but was eventually fired for tardiness.

[5][1] In 1970, Walz bleached and styled the hair of Red Army Faction founding member Ulrike Meinhof, who desired to separate the organisation from the "sloppy APO look", which began to arouse suspicion, and instead adopted an innocent middle-class appearance.

[8][3] According to Walz, he did not know the identity of Meinhof and that it occurred prior to her participation in breaking Andreas Baader out of prison, which included a librarian being shot in the process.

Bettina Röhl disputes this, claiming the styling occurred in October and that Walz performed it knowing Meinhof was hiding from the attempted murder conviction.

[8] Walz's social standing elevated in the mid-1980s due to his friendship with Richard R. Burt, United States ambassador to Germany at the time, and his wife, whose role heavily influenced the high society of West Berlin.

[10] In April 2002, Gerhard Schröder filed an injunction against the ddp [de] press agency for publishing an opinion saying that he "would be more credible if he didn't dye his gray hair".