Abstract
On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the journal "Der Chirurg" (The Surgeon) this article summarizes the development of cardiac surgery. Beginning from the first cardiac suture in 1897 by Ludwig Wilhelm Carl Rehn, through the first catheter investigation of the heart by Werner Forssmann in 1923 to the year 2008 when nearly 100,000 cardiac interventions were carried out in Germany and of these some 90,000 using a heart-lung machine. The article describes the founding of the German Society for Thorax, Heart and Vascular Surgery in the year 1971 and the reintegration in the German Society for Surgery, stemming from efforts for the unification of the structure of further education (common trunk). The motto for this process, which was actively supported by both societies, was "Independence when necessary, cooperation when possible".
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