In the First World War, Nobel joined the Landsturm and was temporarily employed by the Supreme Army Command as chief interpreter for Turkish.

[2] In March 1920, Nobel joined the Preußische Staatsbibliothek as a librarian and in the same year, he successfully defended his habilitation thesis, a work on Indian poetics.

At the same time, he learned Chinese, Tibetan and Japanese and devoted himself to the research in Buddhist Studies.

Nobel's extensive studies and critical editions of Suvaraprabhāsasūtra (Golden Light Sutra), one of the most important Mahāyāna sūtras, appeared between 1937 and 1958.

[5] Nobel's study book, his personal files and some unpublished manuscripts, including a corrected German version of his habilitation thesis, were discovered in his former institute in 2008.