Four youths have been arrested in connection with an arson attack on accommodation used by Polish agricultural workers near the town of Querfurt, police in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt said Sunday.
A police spokesman in the city of Halle said the youths were being held in connection with a charge of attempted murder after firebombs were hurled at the accommodation in the early hours of Saturday.
The six Poles in the accommodation were unhurt in the attack, which police suspect was carried out with a xenophobic motive, the dpa reported.
The four are alleged to have attacked a house belonging to an agricultural association in Lodersleben in the state, which was part of formerly communist East Germany.
Two of the youths detained are aged 17 and the other two 20.
There have been repeated attacks on accommodation housing foreign workers in Germany. In the most recent serious incident, three children were hurt in Ludwigshafen in 2000.
Worse attacks, with loss of life, occurred in Solingen in 1993 and Rostock-Lichtenhagen in 1992.
The eastern states have acquired a reputation for xenophobic violence since German reunification after the collapse of communism in 1989.