The German participating broadcaster on behalf of ARD, Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR), organised the national final Germany 12 Points!

The national final took place on 19 March 2004 and featured ten competing acts with the winner being selected through two rounds of public televoting.

In 2003, the German entry "Let's Get Happy" performed by Lou placed eleventh out of twenty-six competing songs scoring 53 points.

[2] Since 1996, NDR had set up national finals with several artists to choose both the song and performer to compete at Eurovision for Germany.

On 26 September 2003, the broadcaster also announced that they would organise a multi-artist national final in cooperation with private music channel VIVA to select the entry, with the goal of finding songs that have international hit potential instead of those "which do not stand a chance to chart in Germany or abroad and which rather burdened the image of the Eurovision Song Contest in the past.

[5] Eight acts were selected by a panel consisting of representatives of the music channel VIVA from proposals received by NDR from record companies.

[3][8] An additional two acts were later selected by NDR as wildcards due to their top 40 placement in the German singles charts in early 2004: Max Mutzke (winner of the talent show SSDSGPS) and Tina Frank.

[9][10] Singer Masha was originally announced to have been awarded a wildcard for the competition, but she ultimately did not participate as her entry "Right Here" failed to enter the top 40 of the German singles charts before the show.

Following the German national final, show host Sarah Kuttner stated that she and her co-host Jörg Pilawa did not get along very well as he had taken over some of her lines without telling her, which led to confusion during the live broadcast.

[20][21] NDR appointed Thomas Anders as its spokesperson to announce the top 12-point score awarded by the German televote during the final.