Hamburg - Snow and ice played havoc on German roads, causing numerous accidents that left two dead and more than a dozen injured, police said Saturday.

The abrupt arrival of winter turned roads in skating rinks, forcing police to close the A4 autobahn near the eastern city of Dresden for several hours after it was blocked by trucks unable to move forward.

Two young men travelling in a van were killed Saturday morning when the vehicle skidded on a icy highway near Huenfeld in the state of Hesse and crashed into an articulated lorry. Three other people in the van suffered serious injuries.

Four people were injured late Friday when a motorist smashed into a truck that had skidded and blocked the Berlin-Nuremberg autobahn near Muenchberg in the southern state of Bavaria.

Among the injured was the driver of the truck, who was hit by another car when he went to the assistance of the motorist and his two passengers.

Accidents were also reported in other parts of Germany, as traffic struggled to cope with the treacherous conditions.

In Iserlohn, 400 kilometres south of Hamburg, a city bus skidded on an icy patch of road and smashed into a wall, injuring six passengers, one of them seriously.

Meteorologists predicted the inclement weather would continue until the middle of the week, when temperatures are expected to get warmer.

Germany's first snow of this winter at sea level, a couple of centimetres deep, covered parts of northern Germany early Friday, before the cold front started moving south. (dpa)