A leader of German anti-immigration party AfD has described Chancellor Angela Merkel as the "worst in history" in a scathing attack.
Andre Poggenburg made the fiery remarks after his Nationalist party 'Alternative for Germany' (AfD) won three state legislatures on Sunday.
Campaigning against Merkel's liberal migration policy, the politician described it as "an amazing evening," calling the result "brilliant".
The 40-year-old's comments have left many questioning the speedy rise of the far-right wing party.
And some have pointed out that the comment suggests Merkel is worse than even former Chancellor Adolf Hitler.
Leader of the fascist Nazi party, Hitler was elected as Chancellor of Germany in January 1933.
He rose to power after the collapse of the American Stock Exchange caused an economic depression.
During his reign he constructed a genocide, "The Holocaust", which saw around six million Jews killed.
The systematic mass murder of ethnic and political groups occurred during the Nazi regime from 1941 - 1945.
Some users on Twitter called out a Daily Mirror headline which used the quote from the German politician.
"Merkel 'worst chancellor in history' as German anti-immigration party soars," the Mirror tweet wrote.
Exit polls showed that the AfD drew most of their support from people who previously hadn't voted for a party, but they also drew thousands of voters from Merkel's Conservatives.
Poggenburg, AfD leader in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, said: "We fought like lions for your land,","[Merkel is] the worst chancellor in the history of Germany."
While populist, anti-immmigrant parties have thrived for years in other European countries, Germany has been an exception, in part because opposition to far-right ideologies runs deep because of the country's Nazi past.
But the refugee crisis has changed much of that. Since more than a million migrants entered Germany last year, the AfD's membership has increased tenfold.
The AfD, who have previously said German police should be able to shoot migrants at the border, narrowly missed the five percent hurdle needed to enter the federal parliament in 2013 but is now represented in the state assemblies of half of Germany's 16 states.
All of Germany's parties have ruled out a coalition with the group.
One 41-year-old local man summed up the rise of the party in an interview with Reuters.
Nico Braun said: "Are the AfD gone or do I have to say Heil Hitler?"
The Municipal elections have so far been disappointing for Merkel's party, with the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) losing two states they had hoped to win back from center-left incumbents on Monday.
