In the 1980s, Nena was the poster girl of the "Neue Deutsche Welle" - in the truest sense of the word: her portrait adorned countless teenage bedrooms back then. Now, at 65, she is making an incredible comeback - many concerts on her (Europe-wide!) tour (including the one on October 15 at the Kofmehl in Solothurn) are sold out. That's why she's coming back to Switzerland on Saturday, October 17, 2026 - to perform at "The Hall" in Dübendorf.
One of the most curious stories from Nena's childhood is her so-called "far-sightedness". As a three-year-old, she told her parents that she could make people very small in her perception by letting the image in front of her eyes slide into a white beam of light. These optical illusions worried her parents so much that they went to the doctor. For three weeks, little Nena had to endure painful examinations - the doctor even suspected a brain tumor. In the end, it turned out: Nena was perfectly healthy and the "farsightedness" was completely harmless.
The record company was initially completely against the song: "No chorus, no real hook line, you can't sing along," was the criticism. Nena prevailed - and the song not only became number one in Germany, but also conquered the international charts. In the USA, the song reached number two in the charts in 1983. No other song from Germany managed that after that.
Carlo Karges had originally written seven verses for "99 Luftballons", but two of them were deleted so as not to make the song too long. Karges gave the lyrics of these lost verses, which were written on a piece of paper, to a fan and they are still missing today. Drummer Rolf Brendel is publicly searching for these lost lines of text. So it remains a mystery what the missing verses about the famous balloons might have said.
In the mid-1980s, Nena had a one-year affair with rock legend Udo Lindenberg - and it remained completely secret until 2002. The two met at the check-in desk at Berlin's Tegel Airport, and the affair began on the plane. To keep the liaison a secret, Nena came up with a few ideas: "I always dressed up when I was traveling with Udo. Sometimes as a harem girl, sometimes I hid in the trunk," she revealed years later. The relationship was said to have been "great fun" - as both later described it.
Although Nena has had several long relationships and is the mother of five children, she has never married. From 1987 to 1992, she was together with actor Benedict Freitag, who is the father of her first-born son and twins Sakias and Larissa, born in 1990. Since the 1990s, she has been together with drummer Philipp Palm from Esslingen, with whom she has sons Samuel Vincent and Simeon Joel. Despite their long relationship and their children together, they never married.
Tickets are still available for Nena's concert on 17 October 2025 in Thônex.
Advance ticket sales for Nena's concert on Saturday, 17 October 2026, at ‘The Hall’ in Dübendorf will start on Friday, 22 August 2025.