Hassan Salihamidzic put Ottmar Hitzfeld's side ahead after half an hour and, before Berlin had chance to respond, Lukas Podolski doubled Bayern's advantage.

Christian Gimenez halved the deficit in the 58th minute, but Roy Makaay restored the two-goal advantage 10 minutes later.

Dick van Burik once again reduced the arrears in the 82nd minute, but the visitors were never again threatened. The hosts' disappointing afternoon was compounded when Josip Simunic was shown a second yellow card in stoppage time.

With Bundesliga leaders Schalke losing on Friday night, the win lifts the defending champions to within six points of the summit with all to play for in the remaining 10 games of the season.

Fourth-placed Bayern are now just two points adrift of Stuttgart, who slipped a place to third after a surprise 3-1 defeat at Bayer Leverkusen.

Andriy Voronin opened the scoring for the hosts before Paul Freier doubled the lead two minutes later.

Juan then made it 3-0 midway through the second half before Cacau scored a consolation for Stuttgart 16 minutes from time.

It was the first defeat in six games for Armin Veh's Stuttgart, and they drop to third as a result of Werder Bremen's 3-0 victory over Bochum.

Aaron Hunt fired a brilliant hat-trick as Werder pulled to within three points of leaders Schalke.

The triumph marked a welcome return to winning ways for Werder, who picked up their first three points since January 31.

At the other end of the table, Arminia Bielefeld edged to a 3-2 win over high-flying Nurnberg to possibly save new coach Frank Geideck from the chop.

Geideck took over from Thomas von Heesen three weeks ago - only to suffer disappointing defeats against relegation rivals Bochum and Cottbus - but Jorg Bohme's late strike earned the newly-appointed 39-year-old his first three-point haul.

Geideck must have feared the worst when Ivica Banovic gave the visitors the lead, but Radim Kucera levelled things up just before half-time.

Artur Wichniarek scored a penalty five minutes after the break only to see Marco Engelhardt restore parity, but Bohme's cool finish with four minutes to play sealed the points for Bielefeld.

Eintracht Frankfurt also boosted their survival hopes by moving out of the relegation zone with a deserved 2-0 win over Hannover.

Friedhelm Funkel's side headed into the encounter second from bottom in the standings, but second-half goals from Naohiro Takahara and Michael Thurk secured three vital points to see them climb to 14th.

Wolfsburg eased themselves into the top 10 after securing a 1-0 home win over rock-bottom Borussia Monchengladbach.

Cedric Makiadi's second-half effort proved the difference between two sides separated by just four points at the start of play.