During the Second World War, he worked for the company Rosental Selb in Bavaria on high tension porcelain.
In 1947, he came to the US with Wernher von Braun under Operation Paperclip, by means of which the USA gained Nazi engineers and scientists.
"[3] Referring to silicon solar cells, he said to the head of the U. S. Signal Corps, General James O'Connell, at a meeting in September 1955, "In fact, in the long run, mankind has no choice but to turn to the sun if it wants to survive.
For example, the science fiction author, Arthur C. Clarke had already made this suggestion in 1945, but without having a concrete technology for it at that time.
Ziegler was the author of many technical papers, a member of the IEEE, and represented the US, in military and civilian matters, in many national and international committees.
In 1958, he was a member of the US delegation to the International Geophysical Year in Moscow, USSR, and in 1964, he gave advice on the scientific activities in Antarctica and at the South Pole, under the direction of the US National Science Foundation.