After abandoning a commercial apprenticeship, Walter Hege trained as a decorative painter as from 1912, attending courses at Dresden School of Arts and Crafts. After returning from military service, in 1916 he attended graphic design courses at Dresden School of Arts and Crafts. Between 1918 and 1920, he also trained as a photographer with the well-known portrait photographer Hugo Erfurth. Hege became well-known for his publications featuring the cathedrals in Naumburg (1925) and Bamberg (1927), which were reprinted until into the 1960s. In addition, Hege dealt with cultural monuments of antiquity, which found expression in other illustrated books such as Die Akropolis (1930) or Olympia (1936). In 1930 he was appointed head of the photographic department at Weimar Art Academy: after joining the NSDAP, he was then appointed professor. From 1935 onwards, he made films with Leni Riefenstahl and Luis Trenker, among others. After 1945 he moved to Karlsruhe and later to Gelsenkirchen, where he worked as an industrial photographer.
