Local councillors have passed a motion declaring a “Nazi emergency” in the German city of Dresden.

The city council passed the policy statement on Wednesday in a bid to protect minorities amid growing fears over far-right extremism.

It warns that “anti-democratic, anti-pluralist, misanthropic and right-wing extremist attitudes and actions, including violence in Dresden, are occurring with increasing frequency.”

Dresden in the birth-place of the anti-Islam Pegida movement and is a stronghold the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

The AfD took home 17% of the vote in city council elections last year.

Councillor Max Aschenbach a member of the left-leaning satirical party, Die Partei said: “We have a Nazi problem in Dresden and have to do something about it.”

He told local broadcaster MDR: “Politics must finally begin to ostracize that and say: No, that's unacceptable.”

The resolution was supported by the Left Party, the environmentalist Greens, the centre-left Social Democrats, the pro-business Free Democrats.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats voted against it.