[en] Full text: Understanding the microscopic mechanisms of fast magnetic switching processes is of high fundamental as well as of vital technological importance. A particular challenge is the real-space mapping of the magnetization dynamics in complex magnetic systems in the picosecond regime. Soft x-ray photoemission electron microscopy (XPEEM) is known to be an extremely versatile tool to study static domain patterns in such systems, and can be straightforwardly extended into the time-domain by exploiting the intrinsic time structure of the synchrotron light. Our studies of microstructured Permalloy particles employ a magnetic pump - XPEEM probe approach involving microstripline samples. This set-up enabled us to follow the magnetization dynamics with a time resolution of Δ ≤ 10ps. The transient domain images exhibit a rich fine structure which depends strongly on the orientation of the local magnetization M-tilde with respect to the direction of the externally applied field pulse H-tilde(t). For a parallel or orthogonal orientation we find magnetization rotation and domain wall motion. For the antiparallel orientation between M-tilde and H-tilde(t), however, simple domain wall motion is blocked and an incoherent magnetization rotation occurs instead. This process leads to the formation of stripe-like magnetization patterns and vortices, the evolution of which is mapped along the rising edge of the field pulse. Along the trailing edge of the pulse we resolve characteristic relaxation phenomena, which lead to damped oscillations of the domain walls