The nationalist Alternative for Germany party (AfD) made sweeping gains in regional elections on Sunday, inflicting heavy losses on Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU).

Björn Höcke, a politician who has been compared to Hitler by German national television, led the AfD to second place in the eastern state of Thuringia with 23.8 per cent, according to initial projections.

The AfD was held off by the Left Party of the current regional Prime Minister, Bodo Ramelow, which came first with 29.5 per cent.

But Mr Höcke beat Mrs Merkel’s party into third place in a state it has dominated since German reunification.

Following a campaign that saw far-right death threats against its regional leader, the CDU limped in with just 22.5 per cent - by far its worst ever result in a state where it has come first in every previous election since 1990.

With the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) also recording their worst ever result in the state with just 8.5 per cent, the mainstream German parties appear to have lost control of Thuringia. Instead the state is now starkly divided between the hard-left and the hard-right.

The result will be seen as personal vindication for Mr Ramelow, Germany’s first regional Prime Minister from the Left Party, a successor to the former East German communist party.