Erich Zeigner

Who was Erich Zeigner?

Erich Zeigner was Prime Minister of the German state of Saxony during the attempted communist uprising of 1923. After his refusal to capitulate to an ultimatum by then German Chancellor Gustav Stresemann on 27 October 1923 he was replaced by President Friedrich Ebert using the authority of Article 48 of the Weimar constitution.

Briefly the Stressman ultimatum outlined a dismissal of the KPD ministers within Saxony. Zeigner was replaced by a Reich commissioner two days later on 27 October.

In August 1921 Zeigner was Saxon Minister of Justice. On 21 March 1923 he became the third minister of the Free State of Saxony. After being on 10 October 1923 two members of the Communist Party to his government, he was on 29 October 1923 by President Friedrich Ebert using the imperial execution deposed as prime minister. On 21 November 1923 was arrested for alleged corruption Zeigner in office and sentenced in the spring of 1924 to three years in prison, from which he was dismissed in August 1925 on probation

After the Nazis seized power, was Zeigner in August 1933, arrested again, in the process but acquitted 1935th Since then he had to live by doing odd jobs. 1939 re-imprisoned for a short time, he worked as a bookkeeper in Leipzig. After the failed attempt to assassinate Hitler on July 20, 1944 Zeigner and Stanislaw Trabalski as well as Heinrich Fleißner was kidnapped, and other Leipzig Solzialdemokraten was arrested in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In August 1944 he was arrested in Buchenwald concentration camp.