Germany may select its Eurovision 2026 representative through a national selection process.
SWR (Südwestrundfunk) will replace NDR (Norddeutscher Rundfunk) as the German broadcaster responsible for choosing Germany’s entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2026. According to ESC Kompakt, SWR plans to host a national selection to determine the German representative in Vienna next year. The broadcaster wrote the following on their official eurovision.de channel:
“We at SWR are in the middle of concept development. But it won’t be long before you will find out all the news about the ESC 2026 and the German preliminary round.“
No further details regarding location or date of the national selection have been shared by SWR. However, as promised in multiple statements on eurovision.de social media, more information will be released soon.
In last year’s contest, Abor & Tynna represented Germany with their song “Baller”. They won Chefsache ESC 2025, a national final format that NDR has used on and off over the past decade to select Germany’s Eurovision entry. For instance, in 2023, Lord of the Lost won Unser Lied für Liverpool, followed by Isaak winning Das deutsche Finale in 2024. Over the past three editions, Germany placed 26th, 12th and 15th in the Grand Final.
Image source: NDR (Willi Weber) | Source: ESC Kompakt
Germany was one of seven countries to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1956. The country has taken part in every contest since then, apart from in 1996, when they failed to make it through the qualifying round. To date Germany has won the contest twice. The first time was in 1982 when Nicole sang “Ein Bisschen Frieden” in Harrogate, which later became a global hit. Germany didn’t win again until 2010 when Lena sang “Satellite” in Oslo. She received 9 sets of 12 points, scoring 246 points overall.
