This was clearly our April fools day hoax: The only result available of the first Eurovision Song Contest in 1956 is the name of the winner. The rest of the results was an empty page in the contest's statistics book… until today!
On 24th May 1956, Switzerland won the first Eurovision Song Contest with Lys Assia's Refrain. Several delegation heads were unsatisfied with the fact that only the winner was announced, but with their protests, the full jury results could not be revealed.
Several journalists contacted the jury members individually to ask them about the internal discussions, to calculate the original results. WIthout success… The major part of the 14 jury members – two from every participating country – is not alive anymore and the ones who are still alive, can't remember.
The scanned piece of paper you see here comes from a person who was closely involved with the organisation of the first contest: “I don't want to mention my name, because I am afraid to upset people… I still have a good relationship with my old boss and I don't want to risk any problems”, she says. “I was closely involved with the first Eurovision Song Contest and now I am getting old, I want to share the complete results with the world before it's too late and this piece of paper ends up between the garbage”.
The scanned piece of paper shows 14 numbers, probably corresponding with the 14 participating songs – two from every country – in order of appearance. Song number 9, which was Refrain got 8 votes (apparently every jury member gave two points, because the paper counts 28 points on 14 jury members).
The complete 1956 ranking
1. Lys Assia – Refrain (Switzerland) – 8 pts.
2. Walter Andreas Schwartz – Das Lied vom grossen Glück (Germany) – 7 pts.
3. Fud Leclerc – Messieurs les noyés… (Belgium) – 3 pts.
3. Franca Raimondi – Aprite le finestre (Italy) – 3 pts.
5. Tonina Torielli – Amami se vuoi (Italy) – 2 pts.
The 6th place is shared by Lys Assia with Das alte Karussel for Switzerland, Mathé Altéry with Le temps perdu for France, Michèle Arnaud with Ne crois pas for Luxembourg, So geht das jede Nacht of Freddy Quinn for Germany and Dany Dauberson with Il est là for France. These songs received 1 vote.
De vogels van Holland (The Netherlands), Voorgoed voorbij (The Netherlands), Le plus beau jour de ma vie (Belgium) and Les amants de minuit (Luxembourg) received no points.
The European Broadcasting Union has not yet reacted on the story. We'll keep you up to date!
