Approximately 10,000 people have taken part in a protest against a shipment of radioactive waste to Germany. Protesters staged a rally near a North German nuclear waste dump where the containers are due to arrive from France early next week.
The shipment to Gorleben will be the first after a three-year suspension due to safety concerns. More demonstrations are planned over the next few days.
"Resistance is more alive than ever," activist Kurt Herzog told Phoenix-TV. "We are here to stay. This is the task of my life."
The transport is scheduled to leave a French reprocessing plant on special rail cars on Monday and arrive in the area on Tuesday.
Up to 30,000 police officers will guard the shipment and German authorities have warned activists against a repeat of violent clashes with police that surrounded transports in the 1990s.
But several speakers at the rally, about 40 kilometres from Gorleben, called for blockading the transport.
Afterwards, many protesters headed to a temporary camp closer to Gorleben set up as a base for further demonstrations.
Spent nuclear fuel from German power plants is sent abroad for reprocessing, but the contracts oblige Germany to take back resulting radioactive waste.
Transports were suspended by the previous government in 1998 after radioactive leaks were discovered on some containers.