The exhibition explores the central question of how violence was processed, politically exploited, socially legitimised and ultimately completely unchecked after 1918. Taking the experiences of violence during the First World War as its starting point, it demonstrates how violence spills over into political discourse, paramilitary structures, military forms of organisation and social conflicts. Democratic institutions come under pressure, political movements become radicalised, and violence becomes part of social and political reality. Under National Socialism, it is organised by the state and escalates into a war of extermination, the Holocaust and mass violence against civilian populations. Spanning six chapters and drawing on 42 biographies, the exhibition interweaves military, violence and social history. It highlights individual scope for action, decisions and entanglements, and makes clear that violence is not a law of nature, but the result of social developments and human decisions. At the same time, it draws attention to the emergence of the Second Republic and to the handling of war, dictatorship, responsibility and remembrance after 1945.