Patients admitted to an intensive care unit with the diagnosis "polytrauma" differ from other patients by their typical trauma-associated morbidity (diffusive bleeding, traumatic brain injury, lung contusion), and by the staged surgical treatment of multiple injuries. The complexity of the clinical picture, and the complexity of the chronological order of the operative phases require a close cooperation of the medical specialist disciplines involved. The perioperative morbidity and mortality of polytrauma victims has been reduced significantly within the last 30 years due to an adapted transfusion- and substitution regime (rational utilization of anemia tolerance, calculated substitution of coagulation factors), due to modern therapeutic regimes for the patient with traumatic brain injury (stabilization of cerebral perfusion pressure, stabilization of adequate cerebral oxygenation), and due to the modern therapeutic strategies of mechanical ventilation (lung-protective ventilation, kinetic therapy, non-invasive ventilation). The aim of this review is to describe these modern therapeutic principles of the intensive care unit treatment of the polytrauma patient.