Walter Küchenmeister (9 January 1897 – 13 May 1943) was a German machine technician, journalist, editor, writer and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime.

After leaving elementary school, as a young man he worked ironworker and a miner, eventually gaining an apprenticeship as a turner.

[5] In 1917 he volunteered to become a sailor the Imperial German Navy during World War I and on 3 November 1918 was part of the Kiel mutiny.

[2] In 1926 he was expelled from the KPD for non-proletarian behaviour and was suspected of being a police informer and embezzler[2] and this stigmatized his position as an orthodox communist, making him seen by his peer group as a traitor and ex-comrade.

For example, in October 1938 Küchenmeister together with Schulze-Boysen wrote the leaflet entitled Der Stoßtrupp The Shock Troop for the imminent affiliation of the Sudetenland.

By April 1939 Küchenmeister's tuberculosis has advanced so much that Paul advised him to attend a sanatorium, recommending alpine air.

Both Küchenmeister, Paul and the Schumacher's travelled to Leysin in Switzerland, finding the trip to be less suffocating than the Berlin under Nazi rule.

[15] The trip had a secondary agenda in that the small group were sent to meet the German actor, theatre and film director Wolfgang Langhoff,[16] who represented the KPD in exile.

After returning to Germany, Paul attempted a second trip June along with Gisela von Pöllnitz who also had tuberculosis, but this was also a failure.

They believed that as he had already been jailed he could have been possibly turned, but it was Wilhelm Guddorf who considered himself the only representative in the KPD group, who made the strongest argument and demanded of Schulze-Boysen that all ties with Küchenmeister and Paul be broken.

Schulze-Boysen wasn't impressed with Guddorf's argument and instead consolidated his friendship with both Küchenmeister and Paul and at the time began to soften his relationship with Kurt Schumacher.

On 6 February 1943 Küchenmeister was sentenced to death by the 2nd Senate of the Imperial War Court for belonging to the resistance organisation, the Red Orchestra.

Rainer was perhaps the last person of the resistance to see Harro Schulze-Boysen alive, when he was being dragged past his cell window with both his hands heavily bandaged after screws were driven in each finger by the Gestapo.