THE centre of Berlin became a tumult of colour on Saturday as an estimated 750,000 young Germans took part in the Love Parade, writes Denis Staunton.
They danced their way to the Brandenburg Gate in a celebration of techno music which has become the city's biggest annual attraction.
The vast, modernist Ernst Reuter Platz was already overflowing with a pulsating, brightly dressed crowd hours before the parade began but the mood was entirely cheerful, in keeping with the day's motto "We Are One Family".
A great roar rose up when the first of 40 loudspeaker trucks rolled out, decked with sunflowers and laden with a dozen massive speakers pumping out a throbbing techno beat.
Each time the beat changed a thousand arms shot upwards, hammering the air like so many metronomes, with index fingers pointing in approval.
Police smeared every lamp post along the route with grease to deter upwardly mobile ravers from climbing them but many went ahead regardless and were rewarded with cheers of delight from the crowd.
Eight special "love trains" brought thousands of ravers to Berlin from all over the country for what the parade's founder, DJ Dr Motte, has described as "Germany's Woodstock".
Many came straight to the parade from more than 100 "warm up parties" in Berlin clubs, fuelling their dance marathon with ecstasy, cocaine and amphetamines.
There were some 34 arrests during the nine hour parade but more than 1,600 people received medical treatment, a third of them for the effects of ecstasy.
"For an event with 750,000 young people, the evening was relatively quiet," a police spokesman said.