After the Nazis took power Heinrich Ziegler remained in his job as a police doctor for the district of Velten for only a few weeks. On 1 April 1933—the day of a nationwide anti-Jewish boycott—he received a letter relieving him of his duties. No period of notice was observed. As the letter concisely states, Ziegler was dismissed from his position "as a result of changed circumstances … with effect from today."

The German police force was an important instrument of power for the Nazi state. Police authorities were involved from the outset in both the persecution of political and ideological opponents and the marginalization of the Jewish population.

When the new regime assumed power in 1933, it began the ideological alignment (Gleichschaltung) of the German Red Cross. The organization increasingly distanced itself from its original task—providing general welfare services for the population. Now the Red Cross was above all expected to support army medical corps in the event of German mobilization. In the first few months after the Nazis‘ accession to power, unpopular Red Cross members, including Jewish staff, were expelled.

Heinrich Ziegler sought to avoid such a degrading experience by voluntarily resigning his position as a Red Cross doctor in Velten, which he had held for almost eight years. In response, his colleagues in the Volunteer Ambulance Corps composed a letter on 21 April stating: "We offer you our heartfelt thanks for your loyal service to the Red Cross and the genuine camaraderie that you have shown to all of us. We hope you will remain kindly disposed to us in the future." By signing the letter, the twenty-five staff members distanced themselves from official Red Cross policy. They also thanked Heinrich Ziegler‘s wife, the doctor Margot Ziegler, who had worked in the women‘s department. She had also been forced to resign because she was Jewish.

On 11 May 1933 Heinrich Ziegler was dismissed from four public offices in the space of six weeks. The acting head of the local council in Velten, where he had lived for eight years, informed him that, with immediate effect, he was to be relieved of his post as a school doctor at the Velten elementary and the middle schools because of "[his] non-Aryan descent."

Heinrich Ziegler is an example of how the exclusion of the Jews from German economic and professional life—and thus from public life—took place gradually until it reached a point where their very existence was threatened and they had no choice but to emigrate.

The documents linked to Heinrich Ziegler and his family were donated to the Jewish Museum Berlin in 2011 by his daughter Ruth Ziegler. In addition to material about his professional life, the extensive collection includes many documents, photographs and objects related to the family‘s emigration to British India and life in exile there.