The participants in the "Day of Democrats" formed a chain of around 170 banners and signs, made by students from the state of Brandenburg, with slogans such as "Our future will not be continuation of our past," and "Don't look away, look closely."

Shoulder to shoulder, they marched through main street of the eastern German town of Halbe to the Waldfriedhof, the cemetery that was originally at the center of a planned demonstration by neo-Nazis.

A court on Friday had banned the neo-Nazi rally in Halbe, which was the scene of the last major battle on German soil during World War II. Some 24,000 people are buried in the cemetery on the outskirts of the town, many of them war victims.

Following the court order, a group of several hundred neo-Nazis gathered at a cemetery in Seelow, 100 kilometers away, where 649 German soldiers who died in another battle at the end of the war are buried.

A similar number of left-wing protesters staged a counter-demonstration, but there were no immediate reports of violence. Some 1,700 police were on duty at both locations.

Opposition Greens deputy Claudia Roth, who took part in the Halbe rally, accused the neo-Nazis of seeking to "denigrate the memory of the dead."

The rallies took place a day before Remembrance Sunday when Germans traditionally honor their dead.