Carl Thiel

His mother's two brothers, Carl and Ignatz Gebel, worked as principal teachers and choir directors in Ziębice and Parchwitz.

As a junior teacher Thiel taught at a village school in Koszęcin, where he had his own grand piano, and a little later in Zabrze(Mikultschütz).

After four and a half years as a teacher and a study leave granted to him in Berlin, he gave up the profession in 1888 and devoted himself to church music.

From 1887 to 1892 Thiel studied with Woldemar Bargiel at the Royal Music Institute of Berlin and worked and taught there as organist and choirmaster, initially in the emerging community of St. Bonifatius (Berlin-Kreuzberg) [de].

In 1890 Thiel founded the Kirchliche Singschule, a choir consisting of members - mainly teachers - of all Catholic parishes in Berlin.

After two years of collaboration with his teacher and the director of the Royal Institute of Church Music, Hermann Kretzschmar, Thiel was appointed his representative in 1909.

By organizing a commemoration ceremony for Max Reger and a celebration of German culture with Richard Wagner's Parsifal, Anton Bruckner's Te Deum and works by Max Reger, he and his student Theobald Schrems in 1933 strongly supported newer music.

During the period of National Socialism Thiel took over the direction of the Fachschaft VI (Catholic Church Music) in the Reichsmusikkammer from 1933.