How many balloons were there in Nena's 1983 song?

"99 Luftballons" is a song by the German band Nena from their 1983 self-titled album. In 1983 and 1984, their German-language song (and its English version, "99 Red Balloons") reached number one in the singles charts of countries around the world.

Inspiration for the song came at a June 1982 concert by the Rolling Stones in West Berlin. Guitarist Carlo Karges noticed balloons were being released. He watched them move toward the horizon, shifting and changing shapes, and looking like strange spacecraft (referred to in the German lyrics as a "UFO"). He considered what might happen if they floated over the Berlin Wall to the Soviet sector.

Also cited by the band was a newspaper article from about five local high school students in 1973 who played a prank to simulate a UFO by launching 99 (one was lost from the original 100) aluminized Mylar balloons attached with ribbons to a traffic flare. The red flame from the flare reflected by the balloons gave the appearance of a large pulsating red object floating over Red Rock Canyon outside the Las Vegas Valley in Nevada.

Nena were a band formed in West Berlin in 1982 when vocalist Gabriele Kerner (Nena) came to West Berlin with drummer Rolf Brendel, her boyfriend at the time, joined Carlo Karges (guitar, backing vocals), Jürgen Dehmel (bass, Chapman Stick, keyboards, synthesizer) and Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen (keyboards, synthesizers, keytar, vocals). They took their name from Gabriele's nickname (Spanish for "little girl").