When Hitler was arrested during those early revolutionary days, Frick used his position in the Munich Police Department to release him under his own authority (3124-PS).
Frick participated in the Nazi Beer Hall Putsch of 8-9 November 1923, and was tried with Hitler on a charge of complicity in treason. He was convicted and received a suspended sentence of one year and three months in a fortress (3132-PS).
Hitler’s appreciation of Frick’s assistance during those years is demonstrated by the fact that Hitler honored Frick by mentioning his name in Mein Kampf, the Nazi bible. Only two other defendants in this proceeding, Hess and Streicher, share that honor. In this reference Hitler said of Frick:
“He [Munich Police President Poehner] and his coworker Dr. Frick are in my estimation the only men in government positions, who have the right to collaborate in the establishment of a Bavarian Nation.” (3125-PS)
(2) Frick’s activities as member of Reichstag. Having been elected to the Reichstag on 4 May 1924, Frick stated that it was his task not to “support, but to undermine the parliamentary system” (2742-PS).
In the Reichstag Frick immediately proposed those discriminatory measures against the Jews which were enacted after he and the other Nazi conspirators had come into power in 1933. On 25 August 1924 Frick demanded in the Reichstag that all Jews be removed from public office (3128-PS). Two days later he returned with a motion calling for “special legislation for all members of the Jewish race” (3119-PS).
In 1930, a significant investigative report was prepared by the Prussian Ministry of the Interior (2513-PS). This official report analyzed the criminal activities of Hitler, Frick, and other Nazis. It stated that Frick had to be regarded as the most influential leader of the NSDAP next to Hitler. This document reported that at the 1927 Party Congress in Nurnberg, Frick said that the Nazi Party would first infiltrate into parliament and misuse its privileges, then abolish it and thus open the way for racial dictatorship. The document also reported that Frick stated in a speech in 1929 at Pyritz that this fateful struggle would first be taken up with the ballot, but that this could not continue indefinitely, for history had taught that in a battle “blood must be shed and iron broken.” As early as 1929, according to this same report, Frick announced that a Special Peoples’ Court would be created, in which the enemies of the Nazi Party would be called to account for their political acts (2513-PS).
(3) Frick’s activities as Minister of Interior and Education in Thuringia. Frick’s prominent role in helping to bring the Nazis to power was recognized when on 23 January 1930 he was appointed Minister of the Interior and Education in the German State of Thuringia, the first ministerial appointment controlled by the National Socialists (3119-PS).
It was in this capacity that Frick began his manipulation to provide Adolf Hitler with German citizenship, an essential step toward the realization of the Nazi conspiracy. It must be remembered that Hitler at that time was not a German citizen and was regarded by the Prussian police administration as an undesirable alien. This lack of German citizenship was most damaging to the cause of the Nazi Party because, as an alien, Hitler could not become a candidate for the Reich Presidency in Germany.
In the beginning, Frick was unsuccessful when he tried to grant Hitler German citizenship by appointing Hitler as police officer in Thuringia, thus conferring German citizenship automatically. Later he succeeded with a similar maneuver. This was expressly confirmed by Otto Meissner, former State Secretary and Chief of Hitler’s Presidential Chancellery, in an affidavit which reads in part as follows: