Considered a significant figure in Catholic resistance to Nazism, he was elevated to the cardinalate in 1946 by Pope Pius XII.

But Riefenstahl declined the offer on the same grounds she later used (unsuccessfully) with Adolf Hitler: that she would not accept a commission to make a film.

Frings received his episcopal consecration from Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo, the Apostolic Nuncio to Germany, in Cologne Cathedral.

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.

Though Frings left the CDU a few months later because of pressure from Rome, his public partisanship is said to have been the start of the marginalising and gradual decline of the Catholic Centre Party.

Frings spoke in favor for several war criminals, including field marshal Wilhelm List and the Krupps.

Frings was appointed Cardinal-Priest of San Giovanni a Porta Latina by Pope Pius XII in the consistory of 18 February 1946.

Pope Pius XII credited him for participation and signing the related Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus.

[10] In 1954, Cardinal Frings initiated the diocesan godparenthood between the Archbishopric of Cologne and the Archdiocese of Tokyo, one of the first archdiocesan partnerships within the Catholic Church.

Cardinal Frings, who was doubtful as to whether the pope liked his speech, said to his secretary, Dr Hubert Luthe, who would later become the bishop of Essen, in his humorous Kölsch dialect: "Hängen se m'r doch ens dat ruude Mäntelsche üm, wer weiß ob et nit dat letzte Mohl is" ("Please wrap the little red coat around my shoulders again, who knows if it will not be the last time you do it?").

It was recently discovered that the speech had been written by Frings' peritus (theological adviser), Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI.

His speech, predominantly composed by Ratzinger, about the Holy Office, which the prelate perceived as too conservative and authoritarian, had tremendous effects and eventually led to its reorganisation as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The aim of the association is a scholarly study of the life and work of the Cardinal, and making the knowledge accessible to a broader public.

The expression dates back on his New Year's Eve sermon which he held on 31 December 1946 in the St. Engelbert church in Cologne-Riehl, in which he referred to the looting of coal trains and the bad supply situation in the grim winter: We live in times where the single individual, in his need, ought to be allowed to take what he needs to preserve his life and health, if he cannot obtain it through other means, work or begging.

However, it is often overlooked that Cardinal Frings, in the very next sentence, also put the onus of returning the goods or repaying the original owner as soon as possible on whoever would appropriate consumables in this fashion: But I think that in many cases, this was grossly overdone.