Amazing, the history that is buried:

Switzerland’s president expressed regret Friday that his country failed to use diplomatic channels to stop the Nazis from executing a Swiss theology student who tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler 70 years ago.

The move marks a partial victory in the campaign to call attention to the courage of Maurice Bavaud, 25, who was executed in Berlin’s notorious Ploetzensee prison after failing in his attempt to shoot Hitler at a Nazi parade in Munich on Nov. 9, 1938.

By coincidence, Bavaud made his attempt just hours before Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, when Nazis destroyed synagogues and Jewish businesses across Germany and Austria.

“He seems to have anticipated the doom that Hitler would bring to the whole world,” President Pascal Couchepin said in a statement posted on his official Web site. “For this he deserves our remembrance and recognition.”

UPDATE: Turns out that Bavaud never fired a shot, so that explains why this was not considered a big deal, historically speaking. I’m sure there were a few other potential assassins in the history of Hitler rallies that decided they could not pull it off. So while it is commendable that Bavaud thought about it and horrible that he was executed for his plan, it doesn’t reach the heroic level of Von Stauffenberg, he actually wounded Hitler with a bomb.