Schalke 04 striker Halil Altintop headed his side up to second in the Bundesliga on Saturday as the UEFA Champions League quarter-finalists beat Hansa Rostock 1-0 to trim Bayern Munich's lead to six points.

Altintop's goal will help Schalke put last week's Champions League first leg defeat at the hands of Barcelona behind them, but league leaders Bayern, who play VfL Bochum on Sunday, still enjoy a considerable lead with seven games left.

Schalke took full advantage of Hamburg's 1-0 defeat at Stuttgart with Turkey striker Altintop, twin brother of Bayern Munich midfielder Hamit, scoring his side's solitary goal in the 52nd minute with a header.

"In the first half, we had a lot of control and created several chances, which I was pretty happy about," said a relieved Schalke coach Mirko Slomka. "We gave them few chances and the defence worked perfectly today."

Hamburg dropped to third as they were beaten 1-0 by a resurgent VfB Stuttgart who move into the top five for the first time this season with Germany midfielder Roberto Hilbert hitting the winner.

"We played well in the first half and although Hamburg put us under pressure, we held them off," said Stuttgart coach Armin Veh.

Werder Bremen moved up to fourth after their 2-1 win in the capital at Hertha Berlin's Olympiastadion. Bremen's Swedish striker Markus Rosenberg scored after less than a minute as Berlin goalkeeper Jaroslav Drobny made a hash of blocking the low shot.

Hertha hit back when Brazilian striker Andre Lima scored with a header on ten minutes, but Bremen midfielder Tim Borowski hit the winner on 73 minutes to take the three points.

"That was a result which did us a lot of good," said Bremen coach Thomas Schaaf. "We already knew we could play some good football, but we had lost some self-confidence and this game went some way to getting that back."

There was crowd trouble in Nuremberg's 3-1 win at Eintracht Frankfurt when the clash was stopped for 20 minutes after Nuremberg fans launched fireworks onto the pitch at Frankfurt's Commerzbank-Arena.

Eintracht Frankfurt's Michael Fink had put his side ahead after just three minutes before Nuremberg's Angelos Charisteas levelled the scores on 18 minutes.

But with the scores level at 1-1 after 30 minutes, referee Peter Gagelmann marched the two teams back to the changing rooms after several flares hit the playing surface and police moved in to calm the supporters.

When the game resumed Nuremberg's striker Robert Vittek put his side ahead with a 49th minute strike before midfielder Zvjezdan Misimovic settled the matter with a third goal seven minutes from time.

Arminia Bielefeld picked up their first win of 2008 when they beat Karlsruhe 1-0 thanks to an injury time goal by Leonidas Kampantais. The win lifts Bielefeld out of the bottom three into 15th.

VfL Wolfsburg moved up to seventh after their 3-1 win over Hanover with Wolfsburg midfielder Ashkan Dejagah netting twice.

UEFA Cup quarter-finalists Bayer Leverkusen are in action on Sunday against Borussia Dortmund.

On Friday, Energie Cottbus picked up their sixth win of the season at Duisburg to move up to 14th and pull away from the relegation zone.