An encyclopaedist, and a Freemason, he embraced the Enlightenment ideals the development ideas of science and technology, gender differences in men without religion or origin, international understanding and peace among peoples.

In 1777 he participated in experiments conducted by Alessandro Volta in Strasbourg, on marsh gas, and brought him membership into the Academy of Sciences, aided by Antoine Lavoisier.

In the course of his duties, he compiled the Description of ore bodies and mouths to fire the kingdom in three volumes: the Pyrenees (1786), Upper and Lower Alsace (1788) and the southern Lorraine (written in 1788 but published in 1799).

At his home during a dinner in honor of the officers of the garrison of Strasbourg he asked the Captain Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, stationed in his city, to write the "Song for the Army of the Rhine", the future "La Marseillaise".

Summoned before the bar of the Convention, which accused him of supporting the refractory priests and especially to have protested against the insurgency days of 20 June–10 August 1792, Dietrich took refuge first in Basel, in the home of his brother-in-law, Peter Ochs, and was taken prisoner.

Putting pressure on the court, Robespierre declared to the Jacobins: "National justice requires that he [Dietrich] be punished, and the interest of the people demand it to be [done] quickly".