Ilse and her brother Heinz Neukrantz [de] attended junior and middle school locally.

[2] Still working as a stenographer with various employers, in 1946, she joined the Trade Unions Federation (FDGP / Freier Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund).

In 1950, she became the Berlin regional secretary for the Democratic Women's League (Demokratischer Frauenbund Deutschlands, DFD).

[2] In 1953, Ilse Thiele succeeded Elli Schmidt[4] as national president of the Democratic Women's League, one of several quasi-political mass movements that were a feature of East Germany's Soviet based constitutional structure.

[2] The role was an important one: Thiele's long tenure contrasted with her predecessor's fall from grace, and may have reflected her own ferocious loyalty to the national leadership, especially during the politically nervous early 1950s.

In 1954, she became a member of the Presidium of the National Front,[7] the organisational alliance of second tier political parties and mass movements used by the SED to manage and, where necessary, control these elements.