On 27 October 1923, German Chancellor Gustav Stresemann issued an ultimatum demanding a dismissal of the Communist ministers.

Zeigner refused to comply and, two days later, was deposed as prime minister by the President of Germany Friedrich Ebert (SPD) under the authority of Article 48 of the Weimar constitution.

On 21 November 1923 Zeigner was arrested for alleged corruption in office and sentenced in the spring of 1924 to three years in prison, from which he was released on probation in August 1925.

After the failed attempt to assassinate Hitler on 20 July 1944, Zeigner and Stanislaw Trabalski, as well as Heinrich Fleißner, was kidnapped, and other Leipzig Solzialdemokraten were arrested in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

This biography article about a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) is a stub.