I’m trying to think of assassins - preferably in modern history - who are now officially commemorated by a state for the act of killing a prominent political figure.
Examples:
Can you think of others?
Gavrilo Princip kicked off WWI with the assasination of Archduke Ferdinand and has been honored by several plaques and statues.
The home where Charlotte Corday was born is a national historical site of France.
The Soviet Union doesn’t exist any more of course, but Ramón Mercader, Leon Trotsky’s assassin, was awarded the Order of Lenin in 1940 and Hero of the Soviet Union in 1961.
I think this guy meets the OP’s requirements.
Soghomon Tehlirian, killed the former Vizier of the former Ottoman Empire in revenge for the Armenian Genocide. Considered a national hero in Armenia.
I believe that the group Nokmim (Hebrew for avengers) fits the criteria.
Several people who attempted to take out Hitler are commemorated, for example Georg Elser.
Yes, I instantly thought of Claus von Stauffenberg.
Speaking of Armenians, you might add Ramil Safarov to the list. He’s an Azerbaijani who in 2006 was convicted of assassinating an Armenian army officer in Budapest. Azerbaijan secured his transfer as a prisoner from Hungary, whereupon he was immediately pardoned, released, promoted, celebrated, and rewarded with money and an apartment. This caused a major international diplomatic incident and led (among other things) to the severing of diplomatic relations between Hungary and Armenia. Hungary claims it was legally obliged to honour the extradition and that it had no foreknowledge of the impending pardon. As far as I know the two countries still aren’t talking to each other.
All of those involved in the Rainbow Warrior bombing – which killed one person – received promotions eventually.
It was a kind of assassination (it certainly felt that way), and promotion is a kind of honour (it certainly felt that way).
(On the other hand, the French government and military generally felt kind of shabby about it.)
There are apparently streets in Israel named after Sholom Schwarzbard, who assassinated Symon Petliura, the former leader of Ukraine who was at the time living in exile in Paris. This doesn’t really seem appropriate to me, as the killing was apparently motivated by a personal vendetta and served no political purpose for Israel whatsoever, but obviously someone in Israel thought otherwise.
From what I can see, none of these were paid professional assassins, but men (and women) who did what they thought was right- for the most part.
Apparently, a town in Maryland has approved a civil war memorial with a bust of John Wilkes Booth. Not built yet. I wonder if this inspired the OP.
John Brown was a murderer who is commemorated in song. I don’t know if he’s been “officially” honored, but there are monuments to him in Kansas, Ohio, New York, West Virginia and other states. An avenue in Haiti’s capital is named after him.
Some claim that the Emancipation of America’s slaves is itself a monument to Captain John Brown. (Orson Wells reads the words Brown spoke when he was sentenced to hang.)
William Tell, although he is a fictional figure.
Who are the “Some” who claim this?
Nothing I’ve read about Abraham Lincoln’s reasoning in formulating the Emancipation Proclamation says he did it to honor John Brown.
Brown was a major inspiration to both the North’s intellectual elite and to the North’s common people. There’s much doubt whether the Northern appetite for war could have been maintained if succession were the only issue. Instead the North, after Brown’s famous martyrdom, saw themselves with a noble and moral purpose.
Without the Union’s willingness to fight that horrific war, there could have been no Emancipation.
The Rainbow Warrior bombers were paid agents of the French secret service. I don’t think they particularly felt what they were doing was “right”; they were acting on orders from their superiors. That the ship was going to disrupt French nuclear tests was probably none of their concern; it was much more a concern of higher-ups who wanted the military benefits of conducting the test along with only minimal civilian damage by sinking the ship when it was still in port.
The Rainbow Warrior bombers were paid agents of the French secret service. I don’t think they particularly felt what they were doing was “right”; they were acting on orders from their superiors. That the ship was going to disrupt French nuclear tests was probably none of their concern; it was much more a concern of higher-ups who wanted the military benefits of conducting the test along with only minimal civilian damage by sinking the ship when it was still in port.
However, they didn’t intend to kill anyone, and specifically set the charges to minimize the likelihood they would. Instead of the first charge causing people to evacuate the ship like they hoped, it caused a photographer to go somewhere he wasn’t able to escape from when the second charge blew.