After he earned the Abitur at the Goethe-Gymnasium in Berlin, he studied history, German and Latin at the universities of Leipzig, Heidelberg, Munich and Freiburg.
with his thesis Hardenberg und der Gedanke einer Volksvertretung in Preußen 1807–1812 under the supervision of Gerhard Ritter.
Even though he originated from a Protestant family, Zeeden converted to Roman Catholicism and joined the Order of the Holy Sepulchre in Freiburg on May 9, 1954.
The Center was co-founded with historians Josef Engel and Heiko Oberman, and its activity focused on the history of the Late Middle Ages and the Reformation.
Moreover, Zeeden supervised 70 new doctorate theses and educated ten university professors,[2] including Johannes Burkhardt, Helga Schnabel-Schüle and Wolfram Siemann.