Following aseries of new, important accomplishments, which gave the way free for operative procedures at the heart and great vessels, this new branch of surgery has shown a rapid development. The respectable size of cardiac surgery is exempli6ed by the fact that about 8,100 cardiac operations have been carried out by the team of the Dusseldorf University Clinic within the last 17 years. By now, the majority of congenital as well as acquired lesions has become amenable to surgical treatment. In congenital heart disease, which is subdivided into 3 groups on the base of hemodynamic relations, about 22 lesions can be treated by corrective procedures at present. This nu mb er is increased considerably when the combination of single lesions is taken into account. From this large series coarctation of the aorta, valvular pulmonary stenosis, ductus arteriosus Botalli, atrial and ventricular septal defect and trilogy, tetralogy and pentalogy of Fallot have been selected as examples to outline the standard of operative technique and to discuss the obtained results with regard to world literature. Generally, operative risk has decreased considerably, there are, however, still variations with different lesions depending from complicating moments and from the grade of disease.