2 teenagers arrested after off-duty fireman killed

Two teenagers have been arrested after an off-duty firefighter was killed in an altercation between two couples and a group of youths in the southern German city of Augsburg, authorities said Sunday.

The couples had just left a Christmas market late Friday evening when they ran into the seven-strong group of young men and an argument started, according to police. One of the youths hit the 49-year-old victim in the head and he fell to the ground. He died at the scene.

A 50-year-old man who was with him was hit in the face and seriously injured. Their wives weren't attacked.

The perpetrators fled. Dozens of Augsburg firefighters held a vigil Sunday morning for their colleague, and German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer voiced his dismay at the killing.

Later Sunday, Bavaria's state interior ministry announced the arrest of the suspected main culprit and an accomplice. Both were aged 17 and born in Augsburg; the first had German and unspecified other citizenships, and the second was a citizen of an unidentified southern European country.

The ministry said that footage from surveillance cameras enabled investigators to identify the suspects.