Sieger," which means "99 years of war left no room for victors." The anti-war song finishes with the singer walking through the devastated ruins of the world and finding a single balloon. The description of what happens in the final line of the piece is the same in German and English: "Denk' an dich und lass' ihn fliegen," or "I think of you and let it go." English version and other re-recordings The English version retains the spirit of the original narrative, but many of the lyrics are translated poetically rather than being directly translated: red helium balloons are casually released by the civilian singer (narrator) with her unnamed friend into the sky and are mistakenly registered by a faulty early warning system as enemy contacts, resulting in panic and eventually nuclear war, with the end of the song near-identical to the end of the original German version. From the outset Nena and other members of the band expressed disapproval of the English version of the song, "99 Red Balloons". In March 1984, the band's keyboardist and song co-writer Uwe Fahrenkrog Petersen said, "We made a mistake there. I think the song loses something in translation and even sounds silly." In another interview that month, the band, including Nena herself, were quoted as being "not completely satisfied" with the English version since it was "too blatant" for a group not wishing to be seen as a protest band. Two re-recordings of the original German version of the song have been released by Nena: a modern ballad version, which was included on Nena feat. Nena (2002), and a 2009 retro version, which originally aired as an animated video on the European Arte channel (as part of a special called "Summer of the '80s") and included some portions in French (specifically, the second part of the first verse and the entire final verse). Nena later formally released this rendition on her 2010 Best of Nena compilation; however the French text was omitted and replaced with the original German lyrics. Live recordings of the song are included on all seven of Nena's live albums, dating from 1995 to 2018. Reception American and Australian audiences preferred the original German version, which became a very successful non-English-language song, topping charts in both countries, reaching on the Cash Box chart, Kent Music Report, and on the Billboard Hot 100, behind "Jump" by Van Halen. It was