[2][3] Gabriele Susanne Kerner was born on 24 March 1960 in Hagen, West Germany, while her family lived in the nearby town of Breckerfeld.

Nena's musical career began on 2 July 1979 when guitarist Rainer Kitzmann founded the Stripes and, on the basis of having seen her dancing at a local disco, asked her to audition for the position of the lead singer.

In June 1982, they released their first single, "Nur geträumt", which became an instant hit in Germany after the band appeared on the German television show Musikladen on 21 August 1982.

"[17] Although "99 Luftballons" was Nena's only hit in the English-speaking world, the band continued to enjoy success in several European countries in the following years including with the single "Irgendwie, irgendwo, irgendwann".

The title track (German for "Miracles Happen"), composed by Nena herself, relates to the fact that Nena was at the time pregnant with twins, but release of the album that appeared just four days before the fall of the Berlin Wall (on 9 November) and the fact that she performed the song at the end of the Konzert für Berlin [de] three days later has ever since associated it with that historic event.

[12] Having regalvanised her career by virtue of the band's 1980s hits, Nena reestablished herself as a force with entirely new material (produced again by Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen) with the 2005 album Willst du mit mir gehn which quickly achieved platinum status and climbed to No.

She also released the single, "Ich kann nix dafür" in April 2007 for the film, Vollidiot, and her cover of "She's a Rainbow" by the Rolling Stones in the US and the UK.

Since 2009, Nena's releases have been published by her own record label, The Laugh & Peas Company, which also promotes the work of her daughter's group (Adameva) and that of one of her protegées from The Voice of Germany, Sharron Levy.

Nena released a new single on 18 September 2009, called "Wir sind wahr", and a new album on 2 October: Made in Germany.

[12] Nena's next album, Oldschool, which was produced by the German rapper and hip hop artist Samy Deluxe, was released on 27 February 2015.

[21] Distribution rights for the album were agreed with Sony Music, 22 years after the company dropped Nena as a recording artist.

[33] In 2003, she took the stage during the Howard Jones 20th Anniversary concert at the Shepherd's Bush Empire in London to sing "99 Luftballons", with both German and English lyrics.

In March 2015, Nena promoted the release of the Oldschool album with a "club tour" of 16 smaller venues (for 200 to 700 people) including her former primary school.

[36][37][38][39] During this tour, Nena met Dave Stewart with whom she collaborated to release in March 2018 the single "Be my rebel", the video for which went on to win 40 international awards.

[44] Nena's initial live appearances in 2020 were cancelled due to government restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic but were replaced from July that year with the "Niemand hält uns auf" (nobody stops us) series of 12 drive-in, "picnic" and "360" concerts held in accordance with Germany's prevailing social distancing rules.

[45][46] In February 2021 in the debate in Germany about how COVID-19 restrictions should be lifted, Nena sparked controversy by announcing, "there will be no two-class society at my concerts.

[48] However, in July 2021, organisers cancelled her appearances in some festivals after Nena encouraged fans to disregard social-distancing rules during a concert in Berlin.

[52] Besides her singing career, Nena has also acted in the 1983 musical comedy film Gib Gas – Ich will Spass (released in the US as Hangin' Out) opposite fellow musician Markus Mörl [de], and the 1987 invisibility comedy Der Unsichtbare starring Klaus Wennemann and Barbara Rudnik, and voiced the character Saphira for the German dub of the movie Eragon (2006) and the role of the Princess for the German version of Arthur and the Invisibles (2006) alongside Tokio Hotel's Bill Kaulitz.

[56][57][58] In 2007, jointly with her partner Philipp Palm, Thomas Simmerl, and Silke Steinfadt, she founded the Neue Schule Hamburg, a school following the Sudbury model.

[59] Nena wrote an autobiographical book, Willst du mit mir gehn,[60] jointly with Claudia Thesenfitz, a journalist.

[61] In the 1990s, she hosted several TV shows, including Metro and Countdown Grand Prix, the German preselection for the Eurovision Song Contest, in 1998.

In addition to citing the Ramones,[62] David Bowie and Debbie Harry as early influences, Nena's main artistic source of inspiration and her favourite band is the Rolling Stones.

She supports "Ehe für alle" (marriage for everyone) and, as a mother of five, a campaign against the German government's plans to scale back the state provision of midwifery services.

Nena also supports local causes and in 2015 ran (in socks) 2.5 kilometres (approximately 1.5 miles) in aid of a Stuttgart children's hospice.

The couple had three children together, the first being Christopher Daniel, who was born disabled allegedly due to medical errors made during the birth that caused Nena to go into cardiac arrest.

After splitting with Freitag, Nena started a relationship with drummer and music producer Philipp Palm from Stuttgart, with whom she had two children, Samuel Vincent (1995), and Simeon Joel (1997).