Gabriele Susanne Kerner known as Nena , born March 24, 1960 in Hagen, West Germany, is a German singer-songwriter, singer and actress.
Very popular in Germany until today, Nena is best known for her song 99 Luftballons, a worldwide success in 1983, the story of 99 peaceful balloons who wander in the sky and who, taken by the authorities for an enemy attack, cause a world war. Nena is also the name of the band she was singing with.
Gabriele Susanne Kerner was born in 1960 in Hagen. Her family lives in Breckerfeld where the singer spends the first five years of her life, then to Hagen. She is nicknamed Nena (Spanish diminutive of Niña, which means "little girl") at the age of three while vacationing in Spain with her parents. She has a sister and a younger brother. To meet the wishes of her parents, in 1977, she left the school prematurely to follow a goldsmith training.
She began her career in November 1977, meeting Rainer Kitzman in a disco, and offered to join her band The Stripes as a singer. The band's first single, Strangers, came out at the end of 1979, and an EP called The Stripes was released in 1980. Three more singles are coming out but are not very successful. In 1981, the group split up.