Shown in two locations in central Vienna, Heldenplatz and Äußeres Burgtor (Outer Hofburg Gate), the exhibition 41 Days. End of the War 1945—Culmination of Violence depicted the escalation of Nazi violence in the final days of World War II. On 29 March 1945, the Red Army set foot on Austrian territory for the first time in the Klostermarienberg area. It was the beginning of a phase of intensified repressive violence from the Nazi regime. In the 41 days from 29 March to the day the war ended, 8 May 1945, thousands of people in Austria continued to fall victim to Nazi terror.

On Heldenplatz, twelve selected sites—photographed by Stefan Oláh—stood exemplarily for acts of violence committed by the Nazis, who went to extremes to maintain their oppressive regime in Austria until the very last, spreading fear and terror to force loyalty to the end. Hungarian-Jewish forced labourers were sent on death marches to Mauthausen from work on the fortifications of the “South-East Wall.” Concentration camp inmates, political prisoners, and prisoners of war were systematically murdered. Nazi henchmen with death lists hunted down oppositionists and Jews in hiding. Drumhead court-martials sentenced hundreds of deserters to death.

The second part of the exhibition was presented in the crypt of the Heroes Memorial inside the Outer Hofburg Gate building. Vienna 1945—A City in War was about the Allied air raids and bombing, the street fighting between German troops and the Red Army, and the precarious situation of the civilian population.

An exhibition of the Institute of Culture Studies and Theatre History at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the University of Graz Institute for History in cooperation with the Federal Ministry of National Defence and Sports.

The exhibition was also shown in Graz between 12 October and 6 November 2015.