BERLIN (AFP) - Bayern Munich celebrated their first victory since the appointment of Ottmar Hitzfeld as manager with a 1-0 home win against Arminia Bielefeld.

Hitzfeld returned for his second spell in charge of the Bavarian giants last week but suffered defeat against Nuremberg in his first match in charge of the team he led to the 2001 champions League crown.

But there was better fortune for the defending Bundesliga champions here when Roy Makaay fired them to a vital win with an eighth minute goal.

Makaay, watched by a 69,000 full house at the Allianz Arena, raced clear of Arminia´s Heiko Westermann to latch on to Lucio´s towering clearance before slotting a tightly angled shot past keeper Mathias Hain.

Bayern were far from scintillating after the first half but Arminia never looked like breaching their tight defence.

The victory left them in fourth and cut their deficit over leaders Schalke 04 to 11 points.

In Sunday´s other game fifth-placed Nuremberg beat Vfl Bochum with two late goals from Ivan Saenko.

Schalke consolidated their position at the top of the table on Saturday with a 2-0 win over Hertha Berlin to motor six points clear of Werder Bremen, 4-1 losers to Vfb Stuttgart.

Second-half goals from Kevin Kuranyi and former Rangers winger Peter Lovenkrands did the business for Mirko Slomka´s Schalke who can now dream of winning the Bundesliga for the first time since 1958.

Slomka made just one change from the Bremen victory with Brazilian Rafinha returning after suspension at right back, relegating Tim Hoogland to the bench.

Schalke appeared to be feeling the pressure and were not playing to their potential before the break, though they turned up the heat in the second 45 minutes to finish off Hertha with two goals in the space of 11 minutes.

Kuranyi, who scored his 15th international goal in Germany´s 3-1 friendly victory over Switzerland on Wednesday, bagged his ninth club goal of the season in the 64th minute.

Dane Lovenkrands hit Schalke´s second with 15 minutes to go to add to the brace he scored last weekend against Bremen in their top-of-the-table battle.

As for Werder, who led the championship at the halfway stage, they are losing their way with Bremen keeper Tim Wiese being beaten four times at third-placed Stuttgart who, admittedly, have not lost at home since August.

Roberto Hilbert, Marco Streller, Mario Gomez and Ludovic Magnin got on the scoresheet for Stuttgart who were particularly pleased with Gomez who also set up two other goals following his strike in midweek on his Germany debut.

The 21-year-old Gomez is also now the league top scorer with 12 goals.