"Glorious" performed by Cascada was selected as the German entry for Malmö after gaining the most points following the combination of votes.

In 2012, the German entry "Standing Still" performed by Roman Lob placed eighth out of twenty-six competing songs and scoring 110 points.

[2] Since 2010, NDR had set up national finals in collaboration with private broadcaster ProSieben to choose either the song and performer or both to compete at Eurovision for Germany.

On 22 November 2012, the broadcaster announced that they would not continue their collaboration with ProSieben but would still organise a multi-artist national final to select the German entry.

[17] On 19 February, NDR spokeswoman Iris Bents reported that the results of the study would be published when they were available but played down the allegations, stating that "every year there are attempts to create scandals around the Eurovision Song Contest and the participants".

[18] On 25 February, it was announced that "Glorious" was cleared of plagiarism and would remain as the German entry for the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest.

The running order for the semi-finals and final was decided by the shows' producers rather than through another draw, so that similar songs were not placed next to each other.

[32] Voting during the three shows involved each country awarding points from 1-8, 10 and 12 based on the results of their professional jury and televoting.

Each nation's jury consisted of five music industry professionals who are citizens of the country they represent, with their names published before the contest to ensure transparency.

This jury judged each entry based on: vocal capacity; the stage performance; the song's composition and originality; and the overall impression by the act.

In addition, no member of a national jury was permitted to be related in any way to any of the competing acts in such a way that they cannot vote impartially and independently.