He had music lessons with Werner Hübschmann and Gustav William Meyer and took part in the studio choir of the Volksbühne Chemnitz, directed by Paul Kurzbach.

[3] After his Abitur in 1952 at the Georgius-Agricola-Gymnasium Chemnitz [de] Thiele studied musical composition with Wilhelm Weismann and Johannes Weyrauch from 1953 to 1958,[2] conducting with Franz Jung and Heinz Rögner and piano with Rudolf Fischer and Amadeus Webersinke at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik – Mendelssohn-Akademie.

[2][5] In 1962 he began teaching composition and score playing at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig.

[4][6] For the occasion of the opening of the new Gewandhaus on 8 October 1981, Thiele created an extended work on a commission, Gesänge an die Sonne for alto and tenor solo, organ, choir and orchestra.

Thiele took the texts from the Prolog im Himmel from Goethe's Faust, Schiller's poem "An die Sonne" and Hölderlin's "Dem Sonnengott".