Police arrested 19 people Saturday as neo-Nazis clashed with counter-demonstrators in the eastern city of Erfurt, authorities said.
Some 300 people rallied against the march of about 60 neo-Nazis in the city, throwing bottles, eggs and potatoes at them as they yelled “Nazis out,” police spokesman Manfred Etzel said.
Police turned two water cannons on the crowd to break up the scuffle, and took 14 counter-demonstrators and five neo-Nazis into custody, Etzel said. There were no injuries in the clash, he said.
Also Saturday, some 900 counter-demonstrators met 200 right-wing extremists as they marched through the streets of the western German city of Essen.
Despite tension between the two groups, police kept them apart and there were no clashes, said police spokesman Uwe Klein.
In the northwestern city of Aachen, a meeting of some 300 members of the extreme-right NPD party was protested by some 110 demonstrators but there was no violence, said police spokesman Paul Kemen.
Right-wing demonstrations in Germany regularly draw huge groups of counter-protesters.