The Top 10 German hits worldwide

LaDonna Adrian Gaines started out in music singing in a Boston gospel choir. In 1968 she moved to Munich to perform in a production of "Hair". After marrying her colleague Helmuth Sommer, her new surname was by chance turned into "Summer" – and with the help of Giorgio Moroder's electronic disco sound, a star was born. By the time she died in 2012 Donna Summer had sold around 130 million records.

Already boasting a sizeable roster of successful past acts, in 1995 producer Frank Farian assembled No Mercy. While also recruited for their looks and dancing skills, unlike Milli Vanilli and other Farian creations the trio actually sang on their records. And what better place to find young talents like that than a club in Miami Beach, where the impresario discovered frontman Marty Cintron.

A Bavarian who made it big in Hollywood. After graduating from music college Harald Faltermeyer moved to the US, where he went on to pen tunes for major movies such as Top Gun and Running Man. His very first single, however, was the theme tune for the 1984 blockbuster Beverly Hills Cop. "Axel F", incidentally, is a reference to the main character, Axel Foley.

Michael Cretu stormed the charts in 1991 with a New Age project by the name of Enigma. The single "Sadeness Part 1" alone shifted over 5 million copies. Reflecting the puzzling band name, Cretu kept his identity secret for months. The vocals of the mystery woman at the mike, however, were easier to recognize: she was none other than 1980s German pop goddess Sandra – Cretu's producer and wife.

To this day the classic Rock ballad by the Scorpions is commonly associated with the fall of Berlin Wall. It was not in fact released until a year later, in November 1990 – but the song's lyrics certainly do address the thaw in relations between East and West, as witnessed by frontman Klaus Meine at a festival in Moscow. A song very much in the spirit of the times.

Munich-born singer David Lubega acquired a taste for mambo while spending time in Miami in his late teens. And he spread both the sound and the love in 1999 – thanks to "a little bit of " Pamela, Sandra, Rita et al. The crooner won ladies' hearts as well as a string of platinum discs as he topped the charts all over Europe and elsewhere, even though he would be unable to repeat the success.

Searing female vocals, a rapper and a pumping house beat: all the ingredients that in 1990 saw Snap! epitomize the Eurodance genre. The project was the brainchild of Michael Münzing and Luca Anzilotti. The Frankfurt producer duo penned various #1 hits, including "Rhythm Is A Dancer" "Ooops Up" and "Mary Had a Little Boy". Their greatest, hit, however, was "(I've Got) The Power".

This duo's name stands for the biggest scandal ever in German pop music history. In 1988 producer Frank Farian signed dancers Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus to front Milli Vanilli. The duo landed a number of hits including "Girl I'm Gonna Miss You". Two years later, however, it emerged that they had been lip-synching and never actually sang on the records – and Milli Vanilli's career was over.

Nena were a Neue Deutsche Welle based in West Berlin – an appropriate backdrop for their global pro-peace hit "99 Luftballons" in the mid-1980s, with the Cold War still in full swing. After making it to #2 in the US, the band re-recorded the single in English – and the new version "99 Red Balloons" promptly topped the charts in the UK too in 1984.

In 2012 Jamaican singer Omar Samuel Pasley aka OMI recorded a single by the name of “Cheerleader”. Two years later a young German DJ turned the reggae number into a tropical house hit. The remix topped the charts in dozens of countries, from the UK and Germany to Australia and the US.