Initiated by the former head of the 2nd Department of Surgery at the University of Vienna, Prof. Dr. J. Navratil and the cardiologist Prof. K. Polzer, a group of young researchers, led by the young surgical fellow E. Wolner (M. Deutsch, W. Enenkel, W. Fasching, J. Holle, S. Leodolter, U. Losert, F. Stellwag, H. Thoma, F. Unger), was established to study and investigate different forms of temporary mechanical support for the failing heart. Based on the initial work of W. J. Kolff in the early 1960s followed by early animal experiments and the first clinical application in 1968 by A. Kantrowitz, the Vienna Working Group focused in their early animal experiments on the beneficial effects of diastolic counterpulsation of the “Intra-aortic balloon pump (IABP)” (Fig. 1). It was demonstrated in an early series of animal experiments that the mortality after initiation of myocardial infarction could be significantly reduced by the application of the IABP. However, most important, the group could already proof that the early application of the IABP was able to reduce myocardial infarction size as well as the initiation of the IABP was able to stabilize the hemodynamic situation of the animal. Encouraged by these experimental results in 1969, the first clinical application of this novel technology in Europe was performed in Vienna. Subsequently, in a large series of 177 patients the extended indications for application of IABP was elaborated and defined [1, 2]. The miniaturized control and driving unit was developed by an engineering team in house, led by H. Thoma, and was uniquely placed in a suitcase with self contained power source, in order to move the patient freely from the OR to the ICU, or to the angiography room (Fig. 2). Similar like others of the early investigators of the clinical application of the IABP, E. Wolner and his collaborators in Vienna realized that about 50% of the patients treated with IABP could not be salvaged and sta-