Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest 2003

Germany participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2003 with the song "Let's Get Happy" written by Ralph Siegel and Bernd Meinunger. The song was performed by German pop singer, Louise Hoffner, more commonly referred to as Lou. The German entry for the 2003 contest in Riga, Latvia was selected through the national final Countdown Grand Prix Eurovision 2003, organised by the German broadcaster ARD in collaboration with Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR). The national final took place on 7 March 2003 and featured fourteen competing acts with the winner being selected through two rounds of public voting. "Let's Get Happy" performed by Lou was selected as the German entry for Riga after placing second in the top three during the first round of voting and ultimately gaining 38% of the vote in the second round.

In the final of the Eurovision Song Contest, Germany performed in position 10 and placed eleventh out of the 26 participating countries with 53 points.

Background
Prior to the 2003 Contest, Germany had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest forty-six times since its debut as one of seven countries to take part in. Germany has won the contest on one occasion: in 1982 with the song "Ein bißchen Frieden" performed by Nicole. Germany, to this point, has been noted for having competed in the contest more than any other country; they have competed in every contest since the first edition in 1956 except for the 1996 contest when the nation was eliminated in a pre-contest elimination round. In 2002, the German entry "I Can't Live Without Music" performed by Corinna May placed twenty-first out of twenty-four competing songs scoring 21 points.

The German national broadcaster, ARD, broadcasts the event within Germany and delegates the selection of the nation's entry to the regional broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR). Since 1996, NDR had set up national finals with several artists to choose both the song and performer to compete at Eurovision for Germany. The broadcaster organised a multi-artist national final in cooperation to select the German entry for the 2003 Eurovision Song Contest. Following the 2002 contest, head of German delegation for Eurovision Jürgen Meier-Beer stated: "This defeat gives me the chance to make people separate from the old image of the song contest in Germany too. Esthetically, we want to make a huge jump from old-fashioned schlager to modern pop music."

Countdown Grand Prix Eurovision 2003
Countdown Grand Prix Eurovision 2003 was the competition that selected Germany's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2003. The competition took place on 7 March 2003 at the Ostseehalle in Kiel, hosted by Axel Bulthaupt. Fourteen acts competed during the show with the winner being selected through a public televote. The show was broadcast on Das Erste as well as online via the broadcaster's Eurovision Song Contest website grandprix2003.de. The show was also broadcast in Latvia on LTV1. The national final was watched by 5.64 million viewers in Germany with a market share of 18.1%.

Competing entries
15 acts were selected by a panel consisting of representatives of NDR from proposals received by the broadcaster from record companies as well as German newspapers and magazines. The 15 competing artists were announced on 11 January 2003 during a press conference at the Schmidt Theatre in Hamburg and among the acts was the band Troje which were selected before the competition to represent Poland at the Eurovision Song Contest 2003, meaning they would not be allowed to represent Germany according to Eurovision rules. Five of the acts were proposed by German newspapers and magazines: Der Junge mit der Gitarre (Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung), Die Gerd Show (Bild), Freistil (Yam!), Senait (Die Tageszeitung) and Tagträumer featuring Aynur Aydın (Hürriyet). On 21 January 2003, "Marie", written and to have been performed by Joachim Deutschland, was disqualified from the competition after the revelation that the artist had insulted the Bavarian minister-president Edmund Stoiber in one of his other songs and due to the song containing inappropriate lyrics.

Final
The televised final took place on 7 March 2003. The winner was selected through two rounds of public televoting, including options for landline and SMS voting. In the first round of voting, the top three entries were selected to proceed to the second round. The top three entries were. In the second round, the winner, "Let's Get Happy" performed by Lou, was selected. In addition to the performances of the competing entries, 2002 Latvian Eurovision entrant Marie N, who won the Eurovision Song Contest 2002, performed her entry "I Wanna", while the German music duo Modern Talking performed their new song "TV Makes the Superstar". 601,809 votes were cast in the first round, and 367,475 votes were cast in the second round.

Chart release
Like every year since 1996, a compilation CD with all entries was released. The CD also included the 2002 German entry "I Can't Live Without Music" by Corinna May as well as the winning song of the 2002 Eurovision Song Contest "I Wanna" by Marie N. For the first time since 1999, the winning song failed to enter the German singles charts with only three of the fourteen songs, including the disqualified entry "Marie", reaching the top 100.

At Eurovision
As a member of the "Big Four", Germany automatically qualified to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest 2003 on 24 May 2003. During the allocation draw on 29 November 2002, Germany was drawn to perform in position 10, following the entry from Cyprus and before the entry from Russia. At the conclusion of the final, Germany placed eighth in the final, scoring 53 points.

In Germany, the show was broadcast on Das Erste which featured commentary by Peter Urban, as well as on Deutschlandfunk and NDR 2 which featured commentary by Thomas Mohr. The show was watched by 8.92 million viewers in Germany, which meant a market share of 39 per cent. The German spokesperson, who announced the top 12-point score awarded by the German televote, was Axel Bulthaupt.

Voting
Below is a breakdown of points awarded to Germany and awarded by Germany in the contest. The nation awarded its 12 points to Poland in the contest.

After Eurovision
In an interview at the aftershow party of the Eurovision Song Contest, Lou was asked why she did not reach a better position. She answered that she was “too old, too fat and too ugly”. That quote made it to the front page of BILD the Monday after the contest. Previously, Lou had made it to front page of that newspaper stating that she lost weight for Riga and reduced her wrinkles with Botox.