After graduation he studied chemistry at the Technische Hochschule zu Breslau (now Wrocław University of Technology).
In 1934 his thesis "Über die Addition von Verbindungen mit stark polarer Kohlenstoff-Halogenbindung an ungesättigte Kohlen-Wasserstoffe"[note 1] received the highest possible honor (summa cum laude).
The contacts between the testing ground in Kummersdorf and Schumann's Institute was close, the eastern part of the site in Kummersdorf served as an experimental base for Schumann's institutes, in the west a group of scientists around Major Walter Dornberger carried out their experiments.
In autumn of 1936 Dornberger asked Thiel to move from fundamental research to Wa Prüf 11 at Kummersdorf's western testing ground.
West",[note 2] that he presented on 27 April 1937, Thiel introduces developments that lead to decisive changes, including a shortening of the oven and an optimization of the injection nozzle.
Other colleagues of Thiel at the development unit included: Hermann M. Bedürftig, Konrad Dannenberg, Werner Dobrick, Hans Fichtner, Werner Gengelbach, Hans J. Lindenmayr, Dr. William Mrazek, Kurt E. Patt, Gerhard Reisig, Walther J. Riedel (Riedel III), Ludwig Roth, Helmut Zoike.
Work overload, pressure to succeed and the changeover from a research unit to a production facility started to take its toll on the scientists.
In a letter to von Braun, sent during a trip to a health farm, Thiel described the Aggregat 4: "…where it is more of a complicated lab product than a mass item….".
During the following night (17–18 August 1943) the Royal Air Force launched a bombing raid of Peenemünde, Operation Hydra.
[4] Thiel and his family (wife Martha, daughter Sigrid and son Siegfried) were buried at the war cemetery in Karlshagen.
[2] Earlier in the spring of 1941, Thiel began investigating nitric acid and diesel oil to be used as the fuel for the 30-ton-thrust A-8 .
[6][8] By the middle of August 1943, Dr Thiel declared that the A-4 developmental problems preclude mass production, recommended the project be abandoned.