Left-wing demonstrators successfully blocked a march by neo-Nazis in central Germany on Saturday by erecting burning barricades along the planned route.
The NPD, a party the government has likened to the Nazis and tried to ban, had won a legal battle to march through a large part of the university city of Goettingen, but their 250 supporters were forced back after a few hundred metres.
Around 500 to 600 left-wing opponents blocked the route with logs, trash containers, old bicycles and road signs and set light to their barricades. Some threw stones and bottles at the police.
The police, with a presence of almost 4,000 in the city to prevent trouble, intervened with sticks and tear gas and arrested at least a dozen left-wingers, but finally gave up and ordered the far-right marchers to return to the railway station.
Separately, 3,000 locals and members of church groups and trade unions staged peaceful demonstrations in the city centre against the planned seven kilometre neo-Nazi march.
