Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest

The Federal Republic of Germany has participated in the contest since its inception in 1956.^[2] Before German reunification in 1990, the country was occasionally presented as "West Germany". The German Democratic Republic (East Germany) did not participate in the Eurovision Song Contest, and instead took part in the Intervision Song Contest.

With one win (1982) and four second-place results (1980, 1981, 1985 and 1987), Germany was the second most successful country in the contest in the 1980s, behind Ireland, who had two wins in the decade.

1996 absence

ARD had selected an artist and song to represent them at the 1996 contest, to be held in Oslo, Norway. Due to the large number of countries wanting to compete at Eurovision, the EBU determined that only 23 of the 30 countries could compete. Hosts Norway qualified automatically, the other 29 songs went into an audio-only pre-qualification round, with the top 22 going on to compete alongside Norway in Oslo. Unfortunately for Germany, its entry, Leon with "Planet of Blue", failed to earn enough points to progress to the final, finishing 24th. ARD and the EBU were not happy with this, as Germany was the biggest financial contributor at the time. This is the only time that Germany has been absent from the contest.

2000s

In the 2000s, Germany has been notable for their adoption of musical styles which are not typical of Eurovision, such as country and western (Texas Lightning – "No No Never" in 2006) and swing (Roger Cicero – "Frauen regier'n die Welt" in 2007 and Alex Swings Oscar Sings – "Miss Kiss Kiss Bang" in 2009). Germany had some successes throughout the decade, Lou - "Let's Get Happy" came in 11th place out of 26 in 2003. Germany tied for last in 2008 for points, but was awarded 23rd of 25 places when the results were posted. In 2009, ARD held an internal selection for the first time since 1995 due to lack of interest and viewing figures of the German national finals.^[3] Alex Christensen and Oscar Loya were selected to represent Germany at the 2009 contest, where they performed on stage with burlesque artist Dita Von Teese. However they only managed to receive 35 points, placing 20th of 25 competing countries.

2010s

In 2010, ARD approached former entrant and songwriter Stefan Raab and private network ProSieben to co-operate in finding a winning entry for the country. It has been said that Raab was approached due to his good record at the contest, finishing 5th in 2000 as well as writing entries in 1998 and 2004, which finished 7th and 8th, respectively. Raab agreed and conducted a TV casting show called Unser Star für Oslo which was broadcast on ARD and ProSieben. A winner arose in Lena Meyer-Landrut with "Satellite", who went on to win the contest. Two further collaborations with ProSieben provided the second and third top ten result in a row respectively in 2011 (Lena, who returned to defend her title with "Taken by a Stranger") and 2012 (Roman Lob with "Standing Still").

The streak of top 10 finishes was broken in the 2013 contest, when Cascada's song "Glorious" finished 21st with 18 points. The group Elaiza in 2014, Ann Sophie in 2015, Jamie-Lee in 2016 and Levina in 2017 finished in 18th, 27th (last), 26th (last) and 25th (second to last) place respectively. Ann Sophie became the country's third entry to finish with nul points, after Nora Nova in 1964 and Ulla Wiesner in 1965, and the first since the introduction of the current scoring system in 1975.

Germany's luck changed in 2018, when Michael Schulte brought them back to the top 5 for the first time since 2010 with "You Let Me Walk Alone", finishing in fourth place. This is the first time since 2012 that more than one country from the "Big Five" has made the top ten (with Italy finishing fifth) and the second time (after 2002) that two "Big Five" countries have made the top five since the establishment of the rule. The year after, the duo Sisters with the song "Sister" was not able to replicate the same success, receiving no points from the televote and finishing in 25th place with 24 points.

2020s

Three further bottom five results were recorded by Germany at the start of the decade, that of Jendrik in 2021 (also receiving no points from the televote), Malik Harris in 2022 (receiving no points from the juries) and Lord of the Lost in 2023. This streak was broken by Isaak, whose entry "Always on the Run" placed 12th in 2024 with 117 points.

Since 1996, ARD consortium member Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) has been responsible for Germany's participation in the contest. The responsibility for Germany's participation in the contest has changed hands between the different broadcasters over the years:^[4]

• Nord-und Westdeutscher Rundfunkverband (NWRV) – 1956
• Hessischer Rundfunk (HR) – 1957, 1959–1961, 1963–1964, 1966–1971, 1973–1977
• Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) – 1958
• Südwestfunk (SWF) – 1962, 1978
• Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) – 1965, 1996–present
• Sender Freies Berlin (SFB) – 1972, 1991
• Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR) – 1979–1990
• Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR) – 1992–1995

In 1991 SFB worked in partnership with the East German broadcaster Deutscher Fernsehfunk (DFF) to select the German entry for that year's contest. Between 2010 and 2012, private broadcaster ProSieben worked in partnership with NDR.^[4]

Germany has often changed the selection process for the country's entry in the contest, with both national finals and internal selections (occasionally a combination of both formats) having been held.^[4]

Since 1999, Germany, along with France, Spain and the United Kingdom, have automatically qualified for the Eurovision final regardless of their results in previous contests.^[5] These countries earned this special status by being the four biggest financial contributors to the EBU, and subsequently became known as the "Big Four". In 2008, it was reported that the "Big Four" could lose their status and be forced to compete in the semi-finals;^[6] however, this never materialised, and the rule remained in place.^[7] When Italy returned to the contest in 2011, it was given the same untouchable status, thus upgrading the countries to members of a "Big Five".^[8][9]

Germany was the first Big Five country to win the contest after the rule was introduced, courtesy of Lena in 2010. In terms of success, it is currently second behind Italy, which won in 2021 with Måneskin, and finished second in 2011 with Raphael Gualazzi and again in 2019 with Mahmood. However, taking into account Italy's absence from the contest for the first 11 years of the rule's existence, Germany remains the only country to have won out of the original "Big Four".

Congratulations: 50 Years of the Eurovision Song Contest

Barbara Dex Award

Year	Performer	Host city	Ref.
1998	Guildo Horn	Birmingham	[11]

Conductors

Year	Conductor[e]	Musical Director	Notes	Ref.
1956	Fernando Paggi	N/A	Host conductor	[12]
1957	Willy Berking		[f]
1958	Dolf van der Linden	N/A	Host conductor
1959	Franck Pourcel
1960	Franz Josef Breuer
1961	Franck Pourcel		Host conductor
1962	Rolf-Hans Müller
1963	Willy Berking
1964
1965	Alfred Hause
1966	Willy Berking
1967	Hans Blum
1968	Horst Jankowski
1969	Hans Blum
1970	Christian Bruhn			[13]
1971	Dieter Zimmermann
1972	Paul Kuhn
1973	Günther-Eric Thöner
1974	Werner Scharfenberger
1975	Rainer Pietsch
1976	Les Humphries
1977	Ronnie Hazlehurst		Host conductor
1978	Jean Frankfurter
1979	Norbert Daum
1980	Wolfgang Rödelberger			[14]
1981
1982	Norbert Daum
1983	Dieter Reith
1984	Pierre Cao	N/A	Host conductor
1985	Rainer Pietsch
1986	Hans Blum
1987	László Bencker
1988	Michael Thatcher
1989	No conductor
1990	Rainer Pietsch
1991	Hermann Weindorf
1992	Norbert Daum
1993
1994
1995	Hermann Weindorf
1997	No conductor
1998	Stefan Raab		[g]

Heads of delegation

Commentators and spokespersons

Over the years, commentary on ARD has been provided by several experienced radio and television presenters, including Ado Schlier, Thomas Gottschalk, Jan Hofer, Wolf Mittler, Fritz Egner and Werner Veigel. Peter Urban has provided commentary on Das Erste every year since 1997, and has only been absent once, in 2009, when he was forced to step down due to illness, with Tim Frühling from HR filling in to commentate in Moscow.^[21] For the later-cancelled 2020 contest, Michael Schulte was set to commentate together with Urban. Both commentated the official EBU replacement show Eurovision: Europe Shine a Light instead, as well as the German replacement show Eurovision 2020 – das deutsche Finale from the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. Urban stepped down as the German commentator after the 2023 contest.^[22] His successor is to be announced in April 2024.^[23]

Other shows

• 
  Margot Hielscher in Hilversum (1958)
• 
  Katja Ebstein in Amsterdam (1970)
• 
  Roger Cicero in Helsinki (2007)
• 
  No Angels in Belgrade (2008)
• 
  Oscar Sings in Moscow (2009)
• 
  Lena in Oslo (2010)
• 
  Lena in Düsseldorf (2011)
• 
  Roman Lob (middle) in Baku (2012)
• 
  Cascada in Malmö (2013)
• 
  Elaiza in Copenhagen (2014)
• 
  Ann Sophie in Vienna (2015)
• 
  Jamie-Lee in Stockholm (2016)
• 
  Levina in Kyiv (2017)
• 
  Michael Schulte in Lisbon (2018)
• 
  Sisters in Tel Aviv (2019)
• 
  Jendrik in Rotterdam (2021)
• 
  Lord of the Lost in Liverpool (2023)
• 
  Isaak in Malmö (2024)

• Germany in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest
• Germany in the Eurovision Young Dancers
• Germany in the Eurovision Young Musicians

Notes

References

Works cited

• O'Connor, John Kennedy (2010). The Eurovision Song Contest: The Official History (2nd ed.). London: Carlton Books. ISBN 978-1-84732-521-1.
• Roxburgh, Gordon (2020). Songs for Europe: The United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest. Vol. Four: The 1990s. Prestatyn: Telos Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84583-163-9.

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