The poll, conducted by INSA put the AfD on 16%, just ahead of the SPD on 15.5%.

The poll marks the lowest support ever achieved by the SPD, traditionally one of the two major parties of German politics.

According to the poll Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats are the most popular party in the country and would secure 32 percent of the vote were elections to be held tomorrow.

Environmentalists can take heart from the poll too, as it confirms a trend of blooming support for the Green party. The Greens won 8.9 percent of the vote in September's election but are now polling at 13 percent.

The popularity of the right-wing AfD has been creeping up in recent weeks, with polls consistently putting them on 14% or above.

They entered the Bundestag for the first time in September after winning 12.6% of the vote. The party was set up in 2013 and fought the election of that year on an anti-Euro platform, but failed to make it over the five percent hurdle needed to make it into parliament. Last year they ran a campaign fiercely critical of the government's refugee policy, which had led to over a million people applying for asylum in Germany since 2015.