Under the Petru Groza Communist-controlled government, Nicolschi was appointed head of the Detective Corps. At the time, Nicolschi, together with Minister of the Interior Teohari Georgescu, was contacted by Nicolae Petrașcu, a fascist activist who oversaw the main interior branch of the Iron Guard (claiming to represent Horia Sima's exiled leadership of the movement). Petrașcu, who had just been arrested, offered his subordinates' support for the National Democratic Front, which was an alliance controlled by the Communists (in the process, he avoided a direct mention of the Communist Party, and later carried on parallel negotiations with the opposition National Peasants' Party, PNȚ). Georgescu and Nicolschi agreed to the deal, and allowed Iron Guard's affiliates (the Legionaries) to emerge from the underground, awarding them identity papers and employment on the condition that they disarmed themselves. Georgescu was persuaded by Nicolschi to let Petrașcu go free; the minister later confessed that this was done on suspicion that the Iron Guard would otherwise provide support for the National Peasantist leaders: "The PNȚ's attempts, successful up to a certain extent, of attracting Legionaries into their party, giving them a legal possibility to act against the regime".