Assassination Plots & Attempts
The below is a list of known assassination plots & attempts directed against Adolf Hitler, both before and during his time as leader of Germany, some were no more than ideas but serious attempts were made as well, the best known being the one on 20 July 1944.
| Date | Location | Assassin / Plotter |
| July 1921 | Munich | ? (shots fired at Hitler during a rally at the Hofbräuhaus) |
| 1923 | Leipzig | ? (shots fired at his car) |
| 15 Mar 1932 | Munich-Weimar | ? (shots fired at the train car Hitler, Joseph Goebbels & Dr. Wilhelm Frick was in) |
| June 1932 | Stralsund | ? (ambush on a road near Stralsund) |
| 30 July 1932 | Nuremberg | ? |
| 4 Mar 1933 | Köningsberg | Kurt Luttner (arrested 3 Mar for planning to kill Hitler with a bomb at a rally in Köningsberg 4 Mar) |
| 1933-34 | ? | At least 10 attempts or plots came to the attention of the authorities, no additional details known |
| 1933 | Obersalzberg | ? (a man in a SA-leaders uniform is arrested and a gun is found on him) |
| 1934 | ? | Ernst Röhm & Julius Uhl (most likely only alleged) |
| 1936 | Nuremberg | Helmut Hirsch (Hirsch, a Jewish student, confessed to having been sent by Otto Strasser to kill Hitler with a bomb) |
| 1937-38 | ? | Émigré groups mainly in Czechoslovakia, but also in Switzerland & Great Britain, plotted to kill Hitler, but nothing came of it |
| Nov 1937 | Berlin | Josef Thomas (Thomas, a mentally ill man from Elberfeld was arrested by the Gestapo 26 Nov 1937, he had travelled to Berlin to shoot Hitler and Hermann Göring) |
| Apr 1938 | Munich | Alexander Foote (Foote, an Englishman working as a spy for the USSR investigated the possibilities of assassinating Hitler, succeeding to get close to him in his favourite restaurant, Osteria Bavaria, without any problem) |
| 1938 | Berlin | F.W. Heinz (plans were made to arrest Hitler during the Sudetenland crisis and Heinz, who were to lead those responsible for the arrest, decided to kill him instead. The crisis was solved politically.) |
| 1938 | Munich | Maurice Bavaud (Bavaud, a Swiss theology student, made several attempts to shoot Hitler, but failed and was arrested when trying to leave the country by train without a valid ticket) |
| 1938-39 | Berlin | Colonel Noel Mason-MacFarlane (Mason-MacFarlane, the Britsh Military Attaché, investigated the possibilities of assassinating Hitler, but his ideas were rejected in London) |
| 8 Nov 1939 | Munich | Georg Elser (Elser planted a bomb in the Bürgerbräukeller. Hitler left 21:07 and the bomb went off 21:20, killing eight people) |
| 11 Nov 1939 | Berlin | Dr Erich Kordt (Kordt, head of Joachim von Ribbentrop's personal secretariat, planned to kill Hitler the day before the planned offensive against France) |
| 1939 | Berlin | Generaloberst Franz Halder (Halder, Chief of the General Staff, repeatedly went to see Hitler with a loaded gun planning to shoot him) |
| July 1940 | Paris | Oberleutnant d. R. Fritz-Dietlof Graf von der Schulenburg, Dr Eugen Gerstenmaier (they planned to kill Hitler during the planned victory parade in Paris) |
| 1943 | Walki | General der Gebirgstruppen Hubert Lanz, Generalmajor Dr Hans Speidel, Oberst Hyazinth Graf Strachwitz (they planned to arrest Hitler when he can to visit the troops near Poltawa) |
| Mar 1943 | Smolensk | Major Friedrich König (König planned to shoot Hitler during his visit to Smolensk) |
| Mar 1943 | Smolensk | Generalmajor Henning von Tresckow, Leutnant Fabian von Schlabrendorff, Oberst Rudolf-Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff (they placed a bomb on Hitlers aircraft, a Focke-Wulf 200 Condor, but it failed to explode) |
| 13 Mar 1943 | Berlin | Oberst Rudolf-Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff (attempted to kill Hitler with a bomb during an exhibition of captured Soviet equipment at the Berlin Zeughaus) |
| Dec 1943 | Wolfschanze | Hauptmann Axel Freiherr von dem Busche-Streithorst (planned to kill Hitler with a bomb, but the show was postponed) |
| 1944 | Wolfschanze | Ewald von Kleist (planned to kill Hitler with a bomb, but the show was postponed) |
| 11 Mar 1944 | Obersalzberg | Hauptmann Eberhard von Breitenbuch (planned to shoot Hitler, but could not get access to him) |
| 6 July 1944 | Obersalzberg | Oberst Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (brought a bomb to Obersalzberg) |
| 11 July 1944 | Obersalzberg | Oberst Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (brought a bomb to Obersalzberg, but as Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler was not present, it was not used) |
| 20 July 1944 | Wolfschanze | Oberst Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (placed a bomb in the situation room, killing four people, but only wounding Hitler) |
| 1945 | Berlin | Albert Speer (planned to kill Hitler using gas) |
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Last update: 14 Feb 2004
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