A newly elected member of Berlin’s regional parliament once described Winston Churchill as a “war criminal”, it has emerged.

Ronald Gläser of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party accused Churchill of responsibility for 50m deaths.

Another of the party’s victorious candidates is a former leader of a German extremist group modelled on the English Defence League (EDL).

The AfD inflicted damaging losses on Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat (CDU) party in regional elections in Berlin at the weekend, winning 14.5 per cent of the vote and 25 seats in the state parliament.