Paolo Guerrero grabbed a late winner as Hamburg pulled further clear of relegation trouble with a 1-0 victory at Cologne.
Guerrero finished neatly, clipping the ball over home goalkeeper Michael Rensing with two minutes to go after latching on to Mladen Petric's pass.
Tenth-placed Hamburg remain upwardly mobile under new coach Thorsten Fink, moving above Cologne who are six points above the bottom three.
Augsburg and Nurnberg played out a goalless draw in a Bavarian derby - a result which hardly helps either side in their respective battles against relegation.
The fear of losing appeared to outweigh the ambition of winning as both sides settled for a point in a cagey encounter, despite a late flurry of chances.
A goal from Shinji Kagawa was enough for Borussia Dortmund to beat Bayer Leverkusen 1-0 and defend their place at the top of the Bundesliga for another week.
The Japanese midfielder struck on the stroke of half-time to preserve Dortmund's two-point cushion over Bayern Munich, who beat Kaiserslautern 2-0.
Leverkusen, who started the game in sixth place, missed the chance to move above Werder Bremen into fifth with a disappointing performance at the Westfalenstadion as Dortmund extended their unbeaten streak to 14 games.
Mario Gomez and Thomas Muller scored as Bayern kept up the pressure.
The goals went in during the first half and from that point Bayern never looked in any danger of not winning.
They missed further chances in the second half to improve their goal difference, but at least picked up the points to keep them within two points of Dortmund.
Borussia Monchengladbach emphasised their own Champions League credentials with a 3-0 win over Schalke which takes them above their rivals into third place in the table.
All three goals came in the first half for Lucien Favre's side, who trail league leaders Borussia Dortmund by three points and move two ahead of the Royal Blues.
Gladbach's magic triangle of Marco Reus, Mike Hanke and Juan Arango accounted for the goals as the Borussia Park stadium looks increasingly likely to stage European football next season given the Foals' 12-point advantage over seventh-placed Hannover. Schalke, meanwhile, slip five points adrift of local rivals Dortmund.
Martin Harnik scored a hat-trick as Hertha Berlin coach Michael Skibbe's nightmare return to Germany continued at Stuttgart today.
Skibbe has lost all five games since taking over as coach this winter from Markus Babbel and this fourth straight Bundesliga reverse will raise serious doubts about his future.
There should be no doubts about the future of Bruno Labbadia as Stuttgart coach, meanwhile, as goals from Vedad Ibisevic, Harnik and Shinji Okazaki in the space of just eight first-half minutes put the home team on course for victory.
To make matters worse for Hertha, they lost Andreas Ottl to a red card before Harnik added a fourth before the interval and completed his treble to seal a comprehensive victory for Stuttgart.
A late goal from Marko Arnautovic denied Markus Babbel a dream debut as coach of Hoffenheim as they were held to a draw at Werder Bremen.
Jannik Vestergaard gave Hoffenheim the lead in the fourth minute, but they were denied all three points in the very last minute when Arnautovic struck.
The draw left Hoffenheim still searching for their first win in over two months while it was a precious point for Bremen, who took advantage of Bayer Leverkusen's defeat in Dortmund to move two points clear of their rivals in fifth place.
Artur Sobiech rescued a point for Hannover from their trip to Mainz on Saturday as he struck late on to cancel out Mohamed Zidan's opener in a 1-1 draw.
Zidan scored for the second game running following his return to Mainz, but it was not enough to earn all three points for Thomas Tuchel's side.
Sobiech's 89th-minute equaliser maintains Hannover's unbeaten start to 2012 and takes them level on points with sixth-placed Bayer Leverkusen in the hunt for a place in the Europa League next season.
They are in Europa League action on Thursday too at home to Club Brugge in the last 32 of this season's competition.
On Friday night, Wolfsburg moved up to their highest position of the Bundesliga season thanks to a 3-2 win over Freiburg at the VW-Arena.
Petr Jiracek was on target twice for the Wolves with Marcel Schafer also on target.
However, Freiburg came from behind twice with goals from Johannes Flum and Daniel Caligiuri before Jiracek's second goal sealed the win which moved Wolfsburg up to eighth and leaves Freiburg rooted to the bottom.
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