Stuttgart claimed an important victory and there was drama in Hamburg and Wolfsburg during an afternoon of surprises in Germany, although the biggest winners of the day were Jürgen Klopp's Borussia Dortmund.  Victory against Leverkusen put BVB thirteen points clear at the top, and Stuttgart's hard-fought one-nil win over Mainz ensures that the gap between first and second will remain at least twelve points even if Hannover win in Frankfurt tomorrow.  The three points also move Bruno Labbadia's side up from seventeenth into sixteenth, three points from safety.

Bayern Munich's away troubles continued in Wolfsburg as they conceded an equalizer in the eighty-sixth minute, meaning they've kept just one clean sheet on their travels this season.  Philipp Lahm missed a penalty for Bayern and Thomas Kraft saved another from Grafite, but even a sixty-five minute spell from Arjen Robben wasn't enough for the champions, who remain in fifth.

Sixth-place Freiburg had the chance to leapfrog Bayern with a win against St. Pauli at the Millerntor-Stadion, but the hosts managed to score twice and Freiburg only escaped with a point thanks to a pair of goals from Papiss Cissé, his fourteenth and fifteenth in the league this season.  Borussia Mönchengladbach started the second half of the season off with an unexpected victory in Nürnberg; an early goal from Roman Neustäder was the difference after Javier Pinola's late penalty was saved by Christofer Heimeroth.  A stoppage-time goal from Torsten Frings was just enough to give Werder Bremen a win against Hoffenhiem, only a few minutes after it had looked like Boris Vukcevic had given the visitors a share of the points.