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Hitler's myriad executioners sometimes operated abroad. One early victim was Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss, killed in 1934 by Austrian Nazis. A Croatian secret society called the Ustachis, with possible assistance from Mussolini's and Hitler's governments, killed French Foreign Minister Jean Louis Barthou and King Alexander of Yugoslavia in Marseille in 1934.
But all in all, it is surprising how few clearly government-ordered assassinations of foreign leaders are recorded in history. In some cases, doubtless the bloody trail leading back to a rival capital or throne was simply successfully covered. But in most cases, it seems morality or pragmatic politics allowed the targets, however tempting, to remain untouched. Like modern urban murder, assassination seems historically either a family affair or a psychotic act.
*The word assassin is commonly thought to be derived from hashshashin (consumers of hashish), although it may also come from the Arabic root hassa, which means, among other things, to kill or exterminate.