Bayern Munich dropped precious points, while Freiburg gave their survival bid a welcome boost.
Frankfurt, Bremen, Stuttgart and Freiburg all victorious on Saturday
Bayern Munich dropped precious points in the title race, Freiburg gave their survival bid a welcome boost and Dortmund claimed an impressive scalp.
Stuttgart will be hoping to kick on after picking up three points at home and Werder Bremen could yet have a major say in the race for Europe.
Bayern Munich remain just two points clear at the summit after they slipped to a dramatic 2-1 defeat at out-of-sorts
Frankfurt.
An early effort from Miroslav Klose (7) looked to be enough for Louis van Gaal's side, but they suffered a late collapse to end up with nothing to show for their efforts.
Juvhel Tsoumou had only been on the field a matter of minutes when he snatched an 87th minute leveller and another substitute, Martin Fenin, stole the spoils with just 60 seconds left on the clock.
Werder Bremen kept their top-three hopes alive with a battling 3-2 win at home to free-falling
Bochum.
The visitors took the lead through Stanislav Sestak on 14 minutes, before a flurry of goals after the interval injected some life into proceedings.
Claudio Pizarro stepped off the bench to level for Bremen on 58 minutes, but Zlatko Dedic restored Bochum's lead five minutes later.
They barely had time to celebrate, though, as Marko Marin struck on 65 minutes to haul the tie level and Torsten Frings bagged a winner nine minutes from time.
Freiburg are now just two points from safety after they edged out European-chasing
Mainz.
Johannes Flum bagged the only goal of the game after 10 minutes to hand Robin Dutt's side a first win in 13 outings.
Stuttgart had wobbled slightly of late, but got their campaign back on track with a 2-0 victory over lowly
Hannover.
Ciprian Marica was the star of the show as he notched either side of the interval (35 & 54) to wrap up all three points.
Nurnberg were unable to secure a third straight win when they played host to
Hoffenheim, but will settle for a point from a 0-0 draw as they look to preserve their top-flight status.
Saturday's evening encounter saw
Borussia Dortmund inflict only a second defeat of the season on
Bayer Leverkusen.
They are now just five points adrift of the UEFA Champions League places, with a Lucas Barrios double (50 & 60) and a late effort from Dimitar Rangelov (87) seeing them to an impressive 3-0 win.
