Dschinghis Khan is a German Euro discopop band. It was originally formed in Munich in 1979 to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest with their song "Dschinghis Khan". In 2018, there have been two groups with the name: the one led by original members Henriette Strobel and Edina Pop, and a more current group led by original member Wolfgang Heichel and Stefan Track, who replaced the late Louis Potgieter in the 2005 reunion concert.
Beginning: 1970s–80s
The band was formed and managed by German producer Ralph Siegel. Their original eponymous song was written and produced by Ralph Siegel with lyrics by Bernd Meinunger and came in fourth place at the 1979 Eurovision Song Contest in Jerusalem. Their name is the German spelling of the name of the historical figureGenghis Khan. 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 with him. Louis Hendrik Potgieter, the impersonator of Genghis Khan, was South African. Edina Pop 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 singles "Dschinghis-Khan" and "Moskau". In 1980, its English-language version topped the charts in Australia for six weeks, largely thanks toSeven Network using the song as the theme music for coverage of the 1980 Summer Olympics. 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 banned 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, Leslie Mándoki and Louis Potgieter 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. In 1988, Leslie Mándoki and Éva Csepregi, the vocalist of Hungarian pop group Neoton Família, sang the song "Korea" on the opening of the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.
Continued career: 1990s–present
Dancer and front man Louis Potgieter died of AIDS in 1993, while singer Karl-Heinz "Steve" Bender died of cancer in 2006. The success of the band eventually led to Wolfgang and Henriette's divorce, with Henriette reverting to her maiden name of Strobel. In 2005, the band members Wolfgang Heichel, Steve Bender, Henriette Strobel and Edina Pop started a "comeback" with a show at the Retro FM festival in the Olympic stadium in Moscow. Stefan Track came as new member to the band to replace Louis Hendrik Potgieter. In 2018, they re-recorded their song "Moskau" with producer Ralph Siegel and singers Jay Khan, Alexander Malinin and Ustinya Malinin, Jorge Jiménez & Marifer Medrano for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. In April 2018, original member Wolfgang Heichel and Stefan Track, fresh off his spin-off Rocking Son of Dschinghis Khan formed a new Dschinghis Khan after Heichel gained the rights to the name in Germany and Spain. Henriette Strobel, Edina Pop, Claus Kupreit, and producer Heinz Gross also own the rights to the name Dschinghis Khan, with both group patents revealing the use of a certain logo. Therefore, there are two disco groups with the name Dschinghis Khan.
