N. L. Thiele was a civil engineer who worked for over 30 years in Dutch India. Niels Thiele was born in Frederiksberg on June 10, 1882, became a student from Aarhus 1900 and a polytechnic candidate as a building engineer in 1906. He served his military service in the fortress artillery and became Second Lieutenant 1908.

In the years 1907-1911 he worked for various municipalities: Nordby on Fanø, Holbæk, Frederikshavn and Odense, mostly with gas and waterworks. From 1912-1917 he was in the Dutch-Indian Government Service with irrigation, and 1917-1923 in the Contractor company Swanson & Sehested, Bangkok, with a stay in Kuala Lumpur and Soerabaia, Java. After for a couple of years to have been in a Dutch Entrepreneurial Company, he started in 1926 his own Entrepreneur business in Medan on Sumatra.

As far as it is known after the sparse intelligence that has emerged he was been able to work until 1943. From this time the natives have no longer wanted to work for the whites why all his people in the business like the servants in the home
have left him.

After Japan's capitulation the guerilla struggle started. And because he and his wife supported the RAPWI organisation they were murdered.