Lena has landed

Lena Meyer-Landrut may have made her name with the song "Satellite" but, at least for the moment, she's a superstar in Germany.

The 19-year-old ended Germany's long losing streak in the popular European-wide song competition with an improbable triumph over 24 other finalists in a live program from Oslo on Saturday night watched by more than 100 million people across Europe.

Thousands of fans braved bad weather to greet the teenage pop sensation in her home town, some 15 hours after she destroyed the competition at the Eurovision Song Contest in Oslo.

"You guys are really mad! Go back inside, it's raining," she told her loyal supporters, blowing kisses to the crowd. Some of them had been waiting for hours for her return.

Lena flew home on a special Lufthansa charter from Norway, and officials in the city of Hanover even rolled out the red carpet for the youngster.

"Normally this is how we welcome presidents," state premier of Lower Saxony, Christian Wulff, said. "But I think Lena has earned it. She has represented our country to that level."

Political praise

Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel saw fit to congratulate Lena, saying she was thrilled by the teenager's "super success" in the Eurovision Song Contest.

"Lena strongly impressed me with her unpretentiousness and warmth," the chancellor told mass circulation tabloid Bild. "She is a wonderful example of young Germany."

Certainly no one could accuse the 19-year-old of a pretentious demeanor, or of seeming old beyond her years during her on-screen acceptance speech.

"This is so absolutely awesome," she raved at the live ceremony in Oslo after securing a comfortable victory with 246 points. "I feel that this is not real. I'm kind of freaking out. This feels incredibly good."

Foreign minister Guido Westerwelle was also impressed by the attractive youngster's "rousing performance", which "dazzled Germany and sang [her] into the heart of Europe."

He said that Lena had possibly succeeded in making his job of promoting Germany abroad somewhat simpler.

"Whether you wanted to be or not, you are an ambassador for our country who, in one night, charmingly disproved a few old stereotypes," he said.

"Europe does like us!"

The press in Germany agreed that Lena's comprehensive win - after Estonia, Latvia, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Switzerland, Spain and Slovakia all awarded the maximum 12 points for her performance - helped banish a string of stereotypes about German culture, and German pop music.

"Europe does like us!" wrote the Bild am Sonntag Sunday paper on page one, having bemoaned the country's poor placing in past competitions.

"Why doesn't anyone like us?", the paper complained in 2008, when Germany sent established pop stars "No Angels" to the competition in a bid for success. But the band scored a miserable 14 points, in joint-last place.

Since 2005, Germany had never finished higher than fifteenth in the 25-act competition, and the country had only ever won Eurovision in 1982 with an anti-war ballad "Ein bisschen Frieden" ("A little peace") by female vocalist Nicole Hohloch.

However, as reigning champions, Germany will now host the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest next summer.

msh/AP/apn/dpa/Reuters
Editor: Sonia Phalnikar