| Year: | 1991 |
| Country: | Germany |
| Preselection: | Ein Lied für Rom |
| Preselection Date: | 21 March 1991 |
| Entrant: | Atlantis 2000 |
| Song: | Dieser Traum darf niemals sterben |
| Final Result: | 18th, 10 points |
Germany was represented by six-member group Atlantis 2000, with the song "Dieser Traum darf niemals sterben", at the 1991 Eurovision Song Contest, which took place on 4 May in Rome. "Dieser Traum darf niemals sterben" was the winner of the German national final, held on 21 March.
The final was held at the Friedrichstadtpalast in Berlin, hosted by Hape Kerkeling. Ten songs took part and the winner was chosen by a panel of 1,000 people, selected as providing a representative cross-section of the German public, who were telephoned and asked to choose their favourite song. One of the other participants was Cindy Berger, who had represented Germany at Eurovision in 1974 as half of duo Cindy & Bert.[1]
The choice of "Dieser Traum darf niemals sterben" was widely criticised, as many felt that not only was the song itself not particularly strong, but that also the anthemic 'peace, love and hope for the future' style of song was at the time becoming something of a Eurovision cliché (the 1990 contest had seen a plethora of such lyrically-themed entries).
| Draw | Artist | Song | Songwriter(s) | Percentage | Place | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tanja Jonak | "Hand in Hand in die Sonne" | Jean Frankfurter, Irma Holder | 9.5% | 6 | |
| 2 | Susan Schubert | "Du bist mehr" | Willy Klüter, Anna Rubach | 10.8% | 5 | |
| 3 | Cindy Berger | "Nie allein" | Rainer Pietsch, Werne Schüler | 6.4% | 7 | |
| 4 | Barbara Cassy | "Hautnah ist nicht nah genug" | Luis Rodríguez, Peter Zentner | 14.1% | 4 | |
| 5 | Connie & Komplizen | "Jedesmal" | Dirk Schiller | 2.8% | 10 | |
| 6 | Vox & Vox | "Tief unter der Haut" | Andreas Lebbing | 14.9% | 3 | |
| 7 | Stefan de Wolff | "Herz an Herz" | Stefan de Wolff, Andreas Bärtles | 3.7% | 9 | |
| 8 | Ziad & Sandrina | "Die Wächter der Erde" | Walter J.W. Schmid, Alf Schwegeler | 15.2% | 2 | |
| 9 | Atlantis 2000 | "Dieser Traum darf niemals sterben" | Alfons Weindorf, Helmut Frey | 18.5% | 1 | |
| 10 | Strandjungs | "Junge Herzen" | Marco Junger, Bernd Morawitz, Bernd Morawitz | 4.1% | 8 |
On the night of the final Atlantis 2000 performed 17th in the running order, following Finland and preceding Belgium. At the close of voting "Dieser Traum darf niemals sterben" had received only 10 points, placing Germany 18th of the 22 entries, the country's lowest Eurovision finish to that date.[2] The German jury awarded its 12 points to contest winners Sweden.[3]
Atlantis 2000 had been set up specifically to participate at Eurovision and following the bad result in Rome, and the song's failure to achieve significant sales success in Germany, they disbanded soon after.
The show was watched by 6.28 million viewers in Germany.[4]