Walther Gottlieb Louis Leisler Kiep (5 January 1926 – 9 May 2016) was a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

In 1982, Kiep was the leading candidate for the CDU in two successive state elections in Hamburg, losing both to incumbent Klaus von Dohnányi.

[15][16] As the German magazine Der Spiegel wrote a year later, some party colleagues allegedly considered it possible that Kiep had staged the attack himself.

Two years later, however, the state government designated the Gorleben salt dome as a single location for the repository and waste disposal center.

Journal entries of Kiep's had implied that he was the driving force behind the decision to promote Gorleben, putting the idea forward at a meeting with Albrecht and three federal ministers in Hanover on 11 November 1976.

Since he had attended a meeting with delegates from the nuclear power industry on the same day, it was speculated that the lobby had exercised influence on Kiep.

[25] Minister-president Albrecht and Kiep were prominent representatives of the liberal wing of the CDU, who aimed to move their party towards support for the Ostpolitik of the SPD/FDP federal government.

In 1976, they lobbied for their party's approval of new treaties with Poland, against conservative figures such as Alfred Dregger, Franz Josef Strauß and Hans Filbinger.

This was also considered to be part of a plan of CDU chairman Helmut Kohl to bring the liberal FDP back into a coalition with the Christian Democrats (which was ultimately successful in 1982).

[27] In 1978, Kiep served as a special representative for chancellor Helmut Schmidt during a debt crisis in Turkey, mediating between the government of Bülent Ecevit, with whom he developed a friendship, and the International Monetary Fund.

The first, regular election in June brought a majority of votes for Kiep and heavy losses for the SPD and incumbent First Mayor Klaus von Dohnányi.

[31] After von Dohnányi proved unsuccessful in forming a minority government tolerated by the Greens, new elections were called for December.

Shortly after taking over, Kiep brought in economist Uwe Lüthje as general agent and public accountant Horst Weyrauch as a financial consultant.

[1] In 1995, the public prosecution department of the city of Augsburg obtained the calendars of Karlheinz Schreiber, a German arms dealer.

[citation needed] On 4 November 1999, the prosecution office issued an arrest warrant against Kiep, charging him with having accepted a payment of one million Deutsche Marks from Schreiber in 1991 without subjecting the money to taxes.

[35] After turning himself in a day later, Kiep declared during his interrogation that he had accepted the money, with Horst Weyrauch present, as a donation for the CDU.

On 30 November, former chancellor Helmut Kohl took full responsibility for the accounts and later admitted to having personally accepted a total sum of up to two million Deutsche Marks from anonymous sponsors, which were not declared.

As a consequence of the illegal proceedings, the CDU was sentenced to a payment of 41 million Deutsche Marks by President of the Bundestag Wolfgang Thierse on 15 February 2000.