In response to the wave of American and British rock & roll that made its way
into Germany following the Second World War, kitsch, home-grown pop entertainers
began to flood the charts with their own cheery, wholesome romantic hits sung in
their native tongue. Known as 'schlager music', Claudia Jung became one of the
genre's big stars in the 80s and 90s, scoring a long list of top 40 albums and
being dubbed 'the great lady of German pop'. Growing up in Ratingen, near
Dusseldorf in West Germany, Jung (real name Ute Krummenast) was a dental nurse
and laboratory technician before mo...