Kross European Song Contest

History
the Kross European Song Contest (KESC) was created by the Kross Company as the successor to the Kross Gesangsfestival, a cross-European singing competition, which lasted fourteen editions from 1900 to 1913. After the production team was fired in 1914 after the outbreak of the First World War, CEO Marcus Kross wanted to reinvent the contest. The contest become not only about voice, but about the staging, the performance as a whole, and also culture and some times politics.

At the end of the First World War, Marcus Kross stepped down as CEO (leaving in December 1918, after being CEO for 22 years). Liam Bekaert was selected to replace Kross and became the new CEO on the 1st January 1919. After collaborations with sponsors, and supporting companies, Kross Company launched the Kross European Song Contest, whose first edition was held in 1920.

Executive producers are in charge of running the contests and are practically the CEO. They are assisted by their assistant directors who often are also executive at other points of their lives. Liam Bekaert, the person the award was named after, directed 19 contests before he died in the second World War, either as executive or assistant. Kiana Ratz has directed the most contests, at 30, as of 1991. The current executive producer is Katelyn Ratz, daughter of Kiana.

Participating Nations
Striked through nations no longer exist. Some nations have missed editions and returned at later dates. Some nations have returned to the contest as part of another country or under a different name.

Last Places (Semi Finals and Finals)
Contests that weren't held: 1930, 1931, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1971

Each country's hosting and wins
When you win, you get the opportunity to host the next contest. Usually this is taken but there have been a few exceptions where the winner cannot host.

Best and Worst Results
Even if one country has more top 5 entries, if they have less wins, they are lower than someone who has more wins but less top 5 appearances. Germany includes both West German and East German entries.

Controversies

 * in 1928, all of the scores and results 4th place and below were lost due to human error when making the scoreboard and press releases. On 15th May 1934 (6 years later), a meeting was held to solve this gap in statistics by taking the predictions of the show and using them as the official results (by keeping Italy, United Kingdom and Austria as the top 3 as shown in the original show).
 * in 1938, Austria was forced to withdraw after Germany annexed it into it's own country. This became a problem as Austria won the previous edition and was part of the automatic qualifiers. France ended up hosting instead and Switzerland took their place in the final due to their long time good places.
 * in 1941, The Axis held an unofficial contest was held which is usually not recognised.