Friedrich Gustav Thiel

Friedrich Gustav Thiel, known to all the family members as Fritz Thiel and later as Onkel Fritz was born in Bergneustad in Germany. He spent his youth in Witzhelden where his father first taught at the local school and later started his practice as a nature-healer. In Witzhelden Fritz Thiel married Grete Richards but the marriage did not last long and they were legally separated. As a young man Fritz joined the navy. In the Bay of Biscay their sailbout capsized in stormy weather and he was rescued from the icecold waters of the Atlantic. He developed a severe inflamation of his ears which resulted in him becoming extremely hard of hearing which lasted all his life and he had to leave the marines. In 1927 he married Alma Kaufmann, the best friend of his sister Maria. She was also from Elberfeld in Germany. The couple moved to Windhoek in South West Africa where their only child, Carla Cecilie  Thiel, was born in 1928.

In South West Africa Fritz Thiel owned and developed a gold digging enterprise. Together with his wife, Alma, he started a shoe shop, Thiel Schuhe, in the main street of Windhoek, Kaiserstrasse. After he and his wife passed away, his daughter, Carla, continued with the shoe shop and it is still trading under the name Thiel Schuhe in the renamed main street of Windhoek, Independence Avenue. It presently belongs to Carla Thiel’s only son, Peter Klaus Meinzer, from her first marriage to Klaus Meinzer.

Although Fritz Thiel was hard of hearing from an early age and in his later years became totally deaf he, nevertheless, remained very active and was very interested in politics. Due to his poor hearing he spent his last years in relative isolation. Fritz Thiel passed away in Windhoek in 1976 while his wife, Alma, survived him by 4 years.

The photo is of Alma with Carla In Windhoek