German police said a bomb threat forced them to call off an international football match that was meant as a "symbol of freedom" after the Paris attacks and was to be attended by Chancellor Angela Merkel.
No explosives had been found so far and no arrests made after the Germany-Netherlands friendly in Hanover was cancelled and thousands of fans evacuated, said Lower Saxony state interior minister Boris Pistorius.
But Hanover city police chief Volker Kluwe said there had been "serious plans to cause an explosion" in the city's 49,000-capacity stadium, and that authorities had acted on "a concrete threat scenario".
"We received a serious indication that a bomb attack was planned inside the stadium tonight," he told public broadcaster ARD.
The German team was playing France in Paris last Friday when the Stade de France was rocked by three blasts triggered by jihadist suicide bombers outside the venue.
Head coach Joachim Loew had called Tuesday's planned match "a clear message and symbol of freedom and a demonstration of compassion, as well as sorrow, for our French friends - not only in France, but throughout the world".
Before the match, players had been practising the French anthem La Marseillaise, planning to sing it as a show of solidarity with the shaken neighbouring nation.
Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere - who had been due to attend the match with Merkel - later said the event was cancelled "to protect the population", but did not provide specifics.
He said "we had good reasons, difficult reasons" but added that describing them could "cause concern to the population".
Merkel had just landed by plane with de Maiziere when the match was scrapped, and the chancellor flew back to Berlin, the minister said.
The German team are still coming to terms with what they experienced last Friday.
After the blasts, the Germans spent the night in the Stade de France changing room, before flying home early the next morning.
"There was a lot of fear and anxiety in the dressing room that night," said Loew.
"We were afraid."
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