Throughout history there have been cases of assassination attempts on famous people. Some were successful, some were not successful and some were ultimately successful after several attempts. Grigori Rasputin, known as the mad monk, was a very famous Russian. Actually he was what is known as a Russian mystic, who managed to get into the upper circles of the Empire. He had many attempts made on his life and eventually he was assassinated. Even though he had several attempts against his life before the assassins finally succeeded, the amount of attempts on his life pale in comparison to the amounts of attempts to assassinate Hitler.

Hitler was not loved by all powerful Germans as some of those old newsreels would lead you to believe. It is estimated that he had at least 17 attempts on his life that we know about and the miraculous thing is that he was able to survive so many attempts and plots on his life. There is no doubt that Hitler had made a lot of enemies over the years and was responsible for a lot of murders himself. He had eliminated all those that he thought were a liability, even those that helped him gain power. As early as 1939 an attempt was made on Hitler's life by a man who began to resent the lack of religious freedom in Germany. This prayed on him so much that he decided to kill Hitler, who he saw as being responsible for the ever tightening grip of the state of religious freedom. His name was Johann Georg Elser and he was a cabinet maker. He found out that Hitler was going to make a speech in the Burgerbrau Beer Cellar in Munich and knew he loved to talk. So he put a bomb under the podium and set the timer for about an hour. Hitler came and made a speech, but decided to leave early, which was very uncharacteristic for him. The bomb went off after he left and killed several party members and wounded Eva Braun's father.

Another attempt was made in 1939, even before the war started, German General Kurt von Hammerstein tried to lure Hitler to the Seigfried Line. The idea was he and General Ludwig Beck were planning an accident for Hitler, a fatal one. No matter how hard they would try to get Hitler to come out to inspect their lines, he never showed up. This guy really lead a charmed life, or did he suspect something was wrong?

1940 saw a couple of more attempts on Hitler's life. One was planned by Count Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenberg. The count was very unhappy with Hitler and the German government and decided that he had to kill Hitler to restore the old ways. He set a plan in motion, where he would get Hitler to come to Paris, climb up to the reviewing stand and watch a military parade. When Hitler was in the stand he was to be shot. As had happened with the speech at the Burgerbrau Beer Cellar in 1939, Hitler changed his plans. This time he came into Paris early in the morning, toured the famous places he wanted to see and left without ever going to the parade. He had somehow avoided another attempt on his life.

1941 saw another attempt on Hitler's life. The army was not through trying to lure Hitler to Paris. They tried again when Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben tried to get Hitler to go there for a military function. The idea was to have him killed. Again Hitler was a no show.

The army was not giving up on the idea of a Hitler assassination. In 1943 General Hubert Lanz, Major General Dr. Hans Speidel and Colonel Count von Stachwitz decided that Hitler had to be dealt with and his death was the only way to help Germany. The idea was to get Hitler to visit Group B Headquarters in the Ukraine and when he arrived, to have him arrested and then to get rid of him. As happened so many times before, Hitler changed his plans and visited a different army command. Two more attempts were made that year on Hitler's life. The one of note was an explosive that was placed on a plane Hitler was flying on. The explosive was disguised to look like a bottle of brandy. It had a timer and was supposed to go off while the plane was in flight. The bottle had been placed in the baggage compartment and the freezing cold air interfered with the timer and the bomb never went off. The bottle bomb was quickly and quietly taken away by the conspirators upon landing. Other plans had been drawn up, but never came to fruition for one reason or another. One entailed officers all rising up and shooting Hitler in a mess hall, sort of a modern Julius Caesar assassination. The other plan called for an ambush of Hitler's car, as he drove to the airport. Another attempt is made on the life of Hitler in 1943. Colonel Rudofl von Gertsdorff believes that Germany will be destroyed if Hitler isn't killed and is willing to sacrifice his life to get him. He walks up to a conference room where Hitler is and he is carrying a time bomb. Again Hitler leaves before it is time for the bomb to go off. It seems that Hitler has an uncanny knack for escaping destruction.

1944 saw a couple of more plans to assassinate Hitler. In February, Captain Axel von dem Bussche plans to blow up Hitler even though it will cost him his life. He is going to demonstrate a new winter coat to the German leader. Before this can happen, the coats are all blown up in a bombing raid. Again Hitler has escaped destruction. Here is the weird thing. The assassination was planned again during an overcoat demonstration and again the RAF bombed the area and the demonstration was canceled. Was there more to this than meets the eye? At that point could Britain have wanted Hitler alive to continue the war, so that Germany would be utterly destroyed, thus removing a protagonist that had started two world wars? Captain Eberhard von Breitenbuch decides to kill Hitler by shooting him at a conference in Hitler's villa, only to be refused entrance to the conference because of his low rank. Another time bomb attempt is planned, but since Goering or Himmler is not going to be present, it is called off believing that just killing Hitler will cause a civil war. The same thing happens again on the next attempt. The last and most famous attempt on Hitler's life was when a bomb, that was next to him, actually exploded, but he was protected from most of the blast by the heavy oak table that he was seated at. Most of the conspirators were shot and even some of their families arrested.

In 1945 it is said that Albert Speer, the architect and Hitler's Armament Minister decides to kill Hitler by gassing him, but is never able to carry out the plot. There may have been many other plans to kill Hitler that have never come to light or that I have missed, but you can see that Hitler was not popular with everyone in Germany and may have been considered a threat to Germany by many of the old guard.