About 700 demonstrators gathered in central Berlin on Sunday evening after the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party gained just over 13 per cent of the vote in the general election.
The party’s gain was Chancellor Angela Merkel’s loss as although her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party won the most votes, she lost many to the AfD, whose leader has openly supported the Nazis.
The election marks the first time in 72 years a far-right party will have entered the Bundestag.
Crowds outside the building where the AfD was celebrating in Alexanderplatz were growing as protesters chanted “racism is not an alternative, “AfD is a bunch of racists” and “Nazis out!”.
Anti-AfD protests also took place in Cologne and Hamburg after the AfD experienced a late surge in support over the past two weeks.
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Many voters were turned off the CDU after Mrs Merkel’s open-door policy in 2015 which allowed thousands of migrants in, causing friction in many German cities.
Former European Union (EU) leader Martin Schulz’s party, the Social Democrats (SDU) came second in the polls, but he refused to maintain the current coalition with the CDU, saying he would rather be in opposition to give voters a real alternative to the AfD.
Mrs Merkel, who has been Chancellor for 12 years, may now have to form a coalition with two other parties, the Greens and FDP.
The AfD’s surge came following leader Alexander Gauland’s calls for Germans to feel proud of Nazi military achievements.
The 76-year-old is also under police investigation after calling for Germany’s national integration commissioner, Aydan Özoguz, who is German-born and of Turkish heritage, to be “disposed of in Antolia”.
German foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel said this week: “We will have real Nazis in the Reichstag for the first time since the end of the Second World War.”
However, Mr Gauland dismissed the warnings, telling his supporters: “Don’t believe anything the other parties and politicians say about me.
“Remember, when you are in the voting booth no one is looking over your shoulder, no one can see where you put your cross.”
He added: “I don’t believe Sigmar Gabriel is stupid enough to really believe we are Nazis.”
The party’s hopes were not being taken seriously due to ongoing infighting and a vote to marginalise Frauke Petry, its official leader who was seen as its strongest asset.
The campaign was handed over to Mr Gauland and Alice Weidel, from outside the party, which many thought would be the end of the AfD.
However, Mr Gauland has been able to play on the party’s core issue of immigration to gain a late surge in the polls.
Talking in his constituency of Frankfurt an der Oder, where unemployment is high, he told crowds: “We don’t want to be the world’s doormat.
“We want our country back.”
He told them there will be 240million more Muslims in Europe by 2050 and praised Donald Trump for “actually doing what he promised”.