Peter Urban ist ein schlechter Verlierer und hat heute Abend echt Sympathiepunkte eingebüßt. #esc2013 (tweeted by Hansjörg Schmidt)

The ESC is usually a time of soul-searching for Germany. This time, their song Glorious by Cascada (the singer Natalie Horler grewup in Germany but her parents are British) was early reputed to be a copy of last year’s winner Euphoria by Loreen.

You can compare them on this Independent page, at least if you aren’t in Germany, where Loreen’s video is replaced by the familiar Denglish message:

Unfortunately this video is not available in Germany because it may contain music for which GEMA has not granted the respective music rights.

We know that countries often vote for their neighbours, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard the word Nachbarn as often as I did from the German commentator on TV last night. Charlie Bavington rightly tweeted me asking if Germany has no neighbours.

Most bizarre of all was the theory that began to develop at the end that the reason Cascada got so few votes was possibly because of Merkel’s economic policies. As though Cascada needed any help!

See WAZ: Billige Ausrede für ESC-Debakel von Cascada? ARD-Mann gibt Merkel Schuld

Reuters picked it up later:

“There’s obviously a political situation to keep in mind – I don’t want to say ‘this was 18 points for Angela Merkel’,” said Germany’s ARD TV network coordinator Thomas Schreiber. “But we all have to be aware that it wasn’t just Cascada up there on stage (being judged) but all of Germany.”
…
“It’s unexplainable,” said ARD expert commentator Peter Urban on Sunday after Cascada singer Natalie Horler was 21st even though German media had touted her as a favorite. More than 8 million Germans watched, a 44 percent market share.

“Is it that people just don’t like us?” Urban was asked on ZDF TV. “There’s some truth to that,” he said.
“There will be two German soccer teams in the Champions League final next week and maybe people didn’t want Germany to win Eurovision too.”