They ran as if their lives depended on it: punks and clowns, transvestites and even the Tin Man, rushing security barriers and scuttling through the woods to storm the barricade of the G8 summit, writes Derek Scallyin Heiligendamm.
Instantly, the pictures the German government wanted to avoid were flashing around the world: colourful anti-G8 protesters rattling the bars of the €12 million, 12km-long (7.5-mile) security fence built to protect the VIP residents of the exclusive Heiligendamm resort on the Baltic coast.
Six hours earlier, at 7am, the first marchers left Camp Rostock, one of three tent cities in the area, passing a sign from the night before: "No Alcohol Today = No G8 Block Hangover Tomorrow".
The empty beer bottles in shopping trolleys told another tale, but soon even the heaviest heads roused themselves to the contradictions of modern protest life.
They pulled on their sweatshop sweatshirts and wolfed down chocolate croissants from the local Lidl supermarket.
The chain was blacklisted last year by Germany's largest union as "the worst European retailing has to offer" for bullying its workers.
Veronika, a proud young Czech communist, marched off to protest with a Soviet flag in one hand and a Lidl carrier bag in the other.
The protesters descended on the security fence around the resort from three directions.
By 11am, about 1,500 marchers from Camp Rostock were playing cat and mouse with the 500 police officers blocking their way in a poppy field east of Heiligendamm.
It was Apocalypse Now meets the Wizard of Oz as huge police helicopters swooped down, scattering protesters and poppies below.
Faced with a road block and truck-mounted water cannon, the group split into five lines and marched through into a field of grain - and cat and mouse became Catcher in the Rye.
It was a tactic repeated in all three marches: lightfooted protesters easily outpacing sweating police in full riot gear and incensed locals.
"They demand bread to feed the world, but they're trampling over our grain.
"What about that?" said Sabine Kurow, watching protesters trampling her rye field. "I've nothing against young people protesting, but have they no idea they're destroying the hard work of farmers, who work the hardest anyway."
The marchers shrugged off the trampled field as collateral damage in a greater struggle.
Eventually, the police gave up and pulled back, and a roar went up: the last dash for the fence was on.
Meanwhile, other protesters swarmed onto the A41 motorway and on to the track of the Molli steam train, blocking the two main arteries into the resort, as a result of which police were forced to bring surprised delegates to the Heiligendamm resort by sea.
After two hours, police drenched protesters with water cannon to drive them back. By late afternoon, both sides agreed an end to the blockades after the tired but happy protesters had proven their point: the summit show will go on, but not even German best-laid plans are protester-proof.