GERMANY 🇩🇪 Dschinghis Khan is a German pop band originally formed in Munich[6] in 1979 to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest with their song “Dschinghis Khan”, which was written and produced by Ralph Siegel with lyrics by Bernd Meinunger. The band was formed and managed by Ralph Siegel.
The only native Germans in the group were the bald-headed Karl-Heinz “Steve” Bender, and Wolfgang Heichel, who brought his Dutch-born wife Henriette (née Strobel) with him. Louis Hendrik Potgieter, the impersonator of Genghis Khan, was South African. Edina Pop (Marika Késmárky) was a Hungarian who had started her singing career in West Germany in 1969. Leslie Mándoki, also Hungarian, had left Hungary in 1975.
In 1979, the band released the single “Moskau”. In 1980, its English-language version topped the charts in Australia for six weeks, largely thanks to Seven Network using the song as the theme music for coverage of the 1980 Summer Olympics. The Australian single was issued in a die-cut Channel 7 sleeve.
In an interview with Russian television presenter Alexandra Glotova, the producer of the group Dschinghis Khan, Heinz Gross, said that in the 1980s, the band was forbidden in the Soviet Union and was accused of anti-communism and nationalism.
The group broke up in 1984 but 1986 saw a brief reunion as Dschinghis Khan Family. Only Henriette Heichel (vocals), Leslie Mándoki (drums) and Louis Potgieter (keyboards) returned from the original lineup. The song “Wir gehör’n zusammen” led them to a national qualifying round of the Eurovision Song Contest, where they finished in second place.
This year the band is brought back to life with new members: Mexican tenor Jorge Jimenez, Marifer Medrano, Russian superstar Aleksander Malinin and his daughter Ustinya. the song “Moskau” has been free-written and released in many languages with the occasion of the 2018 World Cup.
