Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest

Germany has officially participated in every Eurovision Song Contest since its inaugural edition in, except in when its entry did not qualify past the audio-only pre-selection round, and consequently was not seen in the broadcast final and does not count as one of Germany's 67 appearances. No other country has been represented as many times. Along with, , , and the , Germany is one of the "Big Five" countries that are automatically prequalified for the final, due to their participant broadcasters being the largest financial contributors to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). The final is broadcast in Germany on ARD's flagship channel, Das Erste.

Germany first won the contest in with "Ein bißchen Frieden" performed by Nicole. The second German victory came 28 years later at the contest, when "Satellite" performed by Lena won. Katja Ebstein, who finished third in and, then second in , is the only performer to have made the top three on three occasions. Germany has a total of 11 top three placements, also finishing second with Lena Valaitis and twice with the group Wind (1985 and 1987), and finishing third with Mary Roos (1972), Mekado (1994) and Sürpriz (1999). Germany has finished last on ten occasions, receiving nul points in, and.

While having not reached the top-ten in 14 of the last 19 contests (2005–24), Michael Schulte achieved Germany's second-best result of the 21st century, by finishing fourth at the contest. Although German contestants have had varied levels of success, public interest remains high and the contest is one of the most-watched events each year.

History
The Federal Republic of Germany has participated in the contest since its inception in. 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 and four second-place results (,, , and ), 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, 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 ) and swing (Roger Cicero – "Frauen regier'n die Welt" in and Alex Swings Oscar Sings – "Miss Kiss Kiss Bang" in ). Germany had some successes throughout the decade, Lou - "Let's Get Happy" came in 11th place out of 26 in and Stefan Raab came 5th in 2000, which was Germany's best placement during the 2000's. Germany tied for last in  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. 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, 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 as well as writing entries in  and, 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 (Lena, who returned to defend her title with "Taken by a Stranger") and  (Roman Lob with "Standing Still").

The streak of top 10 finishes was broken in the contest, when Cascada's song "Glorious" finished 21st with 18 points. The group Elaiza in, Ann Sophie in , Jamie-Lee in and Levina in  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 and Ulla Wiesner in, and the first since the introduction of the current scoring system in 1975.

Germany's luck changed in, 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 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 (also receiving no points from the televote), Malik Harris in  (receiving no points from the juries) and Lord of the Lost in. This streak was broken by Isaak, whose entry "Always on the Run" placed 12th in with 117 points.

Organisation
Since 1996, ARD consortium member Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) is who participates in the contest representing Germany. The responsibility within the consortium for the participation in the contest has changed hands between its different members over the years:


 * 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.

The process to select the German entry in the contest has changed over the years, with both national finals and internal selections (occasionally a combination of both formats) having been held.

Germany and the "Big Five"
Since 1999, Germany, along with, and the , have automatically qualified for the Eurovision final regardless of their results in previous contests. The participant broadcasters from 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; however, this never materialised, and the rule remained in place. 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".

Germany was the first Big Five country to win the contest after the rule was introduced, courtesy of Lena in. In terms of success, it is currently second behind Italy, which won in with Måneskin, and finished second in  with Raphael Gualazzi and again in  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".

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. For the later-cancelled 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. His successor is Thorsten Schorn.