German cardinal; longtime archbishop of Cologne.
 
SIG - Signature; clipped from a 1961 holiday greeting to Cardinal König. Sufficient room for matting. Nice example.
 
The National Socialist regime had banned the German media from covering the consecration ceremonies; therefore, the citizens of Cologne started to publish small private advertisements to inform each other of the news.
 
However, the international press was allowed to report the consecration. The persecution of the Jews was described by Frings as himmelschreiendes Unrecht, 'injustice crying out to heaven'. His popularity saved him from reprisals more than once. Nevertheless, he was closely monitored by the Gestapo with the aid of several informers, including some clerics.
Frings's consecration was used as a demonstration of Catholic self-assertion. In his sermons, he repeatedly spoke in support of persecuted peoples and against state repression. In March 1944, Frings attacked arbitrary arrests, racial persecution and forced divorces. That autumn, he protested to the Gestapo against the deportations of Jews from Cologne and surrounds. In 1943, the German bishops had debated whether to confront Hitler directly and collectively over what they knew of the treatment of Jews. Frings wrote a pastoral letter cautioning his diocese not to violate the inherent rights of others to life, even those "not of our blood" and even during war, and preached in a sermon that "no one may take the property or life of an innocent person just because he is a member of a foreign race".