Thomas Godoj (born March 6, 1978 in Rybnik, Poland) is a Polish-German rock-pop singer and songwriter. He is known most notably for winning season 5 of Deutschland sucht den Superstar (German Pop Idol). Godoj was born on March 6, 1978 in Rybnik, Poland to Danuta and Eugen Godoj. In 1981, he and his parents along with his sister Hannah moved to Recklinghausen. Thomas then attended a secondary school and passed his speciality graduation examination for a career as a technical draftsman. He attended the Bochum University of Applied Sciences, specializing in civil engineering. During his studies, he became interested in music and played with local bands such as Cure of Souls, Fluxkompensator, Tonk! and WINK. In the summer of 2007, Godoj auditioned in Berlin for the fifth season of Deutschland sucht den Superstar. The judges enjoyed his rock style and attitude and each one voted him on to the next round, and later to the top 15. In the first live show, Thomas performed Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol and received over a minutes standing ovation from the audience while the jury gave him overwhelming praise. Week after week, Thomas performed for Germany until he reached the Top 2. Godoj won the final contest with 62,2%. Although Thomas was a front-runner from the start of the competition, he landed in the bottom groups twice during live result shows. But after the voting results were published, it was shown that Thomas received the highest percentage of votes every week. This places him in DSDS history, along with Mark Medlock, as a contestant with the highest number of votes each week.