Biography
Dschinghis Khan were the married couple Henriette (born in 1954 in Amsterdam, Holland) and Wolfgang Heichel (born in 1951 in Meißen), Leslie Mandoki (born in 1953 in Budapest, Hungary), Edina Popp (born in 1947 in Budapest, Hungary), Louis Henrik Potgieter (born in 1952 in South Africa) and Steve Bender (born in 1947 in Mainz). The group was brought together in February 1979 to perform the song Dschinghis Khan at the German final. The Russian-styled act did well at the Eurovision Song Contest in Jerusalem and they followed Dschinghis Khan with two more songs in the same vein, Moskau and Hadschi Halef Omar. In 1980 the group changed their course and began to sing more varied songs. After the second album Viva Steve Bender left the group.The group made three more albums, the last, Corrida, being a musical written in 1984 by Ralph Siegel and Bernd Meinunger. After this musical and the 1985 single Mexico and the 1986 single Give Me A Sign all five group members went their separate ways. Leslie Mandoki was the only one of the group that kept a public profile, as he released well selling solo albums. The group briefly returned to the German charts in 1993 and 1999 with their greatest hits medleys Huh Hah Dschinghis Khan and The Story Of Dschinghis Khan. Louis Henrik Potgieter died in the mid-90's.
That Eurovision Song Contest craze is hereditary was proofed in 1994, when Steve Bender and Edina Popp's daughter Melanie (as part of MeKaDo) brought Germany in the top 3 again with another Ralph Siegel/Bernd Meinunger composition Wir Geben 'Ne Party.