The 19th artist in our Who Is series for the Eurovision Song Contest 2026 is Sarah Engels from Germany.
Sarah Engels was born on October 15, 1992 in Cologne. She is of partial Sicilian descent through her maternal grandparents.
Engels came to public attention after participating in the eighth season of Deutschland sucht den Superstar in 2011. Although she was originally eliminated in the top 10 round, she was brought back to the competition after one of the other contestants had to withdraw for health reasons. She went on to reach the final and finished in second place.
After appearing on Deutschland sucht den Superstar, Engels released her debut single “Call My Name”, which reached number 2 on the German Singles Chart. In June 2011, she released her debut album “Heartbeat”, which consisted of cover versions of songs she performed on Deutschland sucht den Superstar and original songs.
In 2013, Engels started performing as part of the duo Sarah & Pietro, which was formed of Engels and Pietro Lombardi, the winner of the same season of Deutschland sucht den Superstar that Engels was on. The duo’s debut album “Dream Team” was released in March 2013.
The duo was also a romantic partnership and they got married in 2013. The duo released their first German-language single “Nimmerland” in 2015, which served as the theme song of the duo’s documentary reality show Sarah & Pietro… bekommen ein Baby, which followed the couple’s pregnancy journey. In 2016, the duo released their first German-language album “Teil von mir”. The couple separated in 2016. Engels also finished second in the dancing show Let’s Dance in the same year.
In 2018, Engels released her first solo single in seven years under the stage name Sarah, “Genau hier”. Later that year, she released her second solo album “Zurück zu mir”.
In 2020, Engels represented Italy in the Free European Song Contest with “Te amo mi amor” and finished 13th. The following year, she released the album “Im Augenblick”.
In 2023, Engels provided the singing voice for Marinette in the German dub of Miraculous: Ladybug & Cat Noir, The Movie.
In 2025, Engels released her most recent album “Strong Girls Club”, an album with 12 songs in English and 12 in German. Since November 2025, she has played Satine in the Cologne production of Moulin Rouge!
Sarah Engels was selected to represent Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest 2026 after winning Eurovision Song Contest – Das deutsche Finale 2026. She received 38.30% of the public vote in the superfinal.
The song that Sarah will perform in Vienna is called “Fire”. It was written and composed by Dario Schürmann, Luisa Heinemann, Raphael Lott, Valentin Boes and Sarah herself.
Sarah Engels will compete in the Grand Final on May 16. In addition, she will also perform during the second semi-final on May 14.
Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest+
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.