A pilgrim dressed as Saint George passes the Ettendorf chapel during the traditional Georgi horse riding procession on Easter Monday in the southern Bavarian town of Traunstein April 9, 2007.(Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

    BERLIN, April 10 (Xinhua) -- Tens of thousands peace activists took to the streets across Germany over the Easter weekend in protest against war and foreign deployment of German troops.

    Organizers said that people participated in the traditional Easter marches in about 80 towns throughout the country, with the main rallies being held in Hamburg and Frankfurt, each attracting about 2,000 protestors.

    Peace activists called on the German government to put an end to foreign deployment of German troops, such as the 3,000 German soldiers deployed in Afghanistan.

    They criticized particularly last week's dispatch of six German Tornado reconnaissance aircraft to Afghanistan, which are supposed to assist NATO-led operations against Talibans.

    Activists said the unpopular decision made by the government would involve German troops in bombardment which would surely result in a lot of civilian casualties.

    Leaders of the pacifist Green party have distanced themselves from this year's Easter marches, blaming the events of focusing exclusively on anti-militarism.

    Germany's Easter peace marches date back to the 1960s. The tradition reached its peaks in 1968 during the Vietnam War and then again in 1983, when about 700,000 protested in West Germany against the deployment of medium-range nuclear weapons in Europe.