Manuel Ochsenreiter
Manuel Ochsenreiter on air talking about Russia and Crimea Screengrab

A regular German host for the Kremlin-funded RT news outlets has been exposed as the editor of a neo-Nazi revisionist magazine.

Manuel Ochsenreiter, who has appeared on the English-language channel for the past four years as an expert on German and Middle Eastern affairs, is the editor of Zuerst!, a radical right-wing monthly magazine, which pledges to "serve German – not foreign – interests" and preserve "German ethnical identity" against "de-nazification".

Zuerst!'s former publisher was the Bauer Media group, Germany's largest magazine publisher, which came under a storm after evidence was uncovered that many of its magazines were glorifying Nazism and Adolf Hitler's soldiers, polishing the image of the Third Reich in popular culture.

Ochsenreiter's magazine advances an anti-immigrant stance and laments the loss of ethnic identity. It caught the attention of the Baden-Württemberg' state office for the protection of the constitution, which said in a statement: "The publication rails against the 'unending de-nazification effort', spreads revisionist theories on national boundaries, and the terrorist activities of the South Tirolean Freedom Fighters in the 1960s."

However, the German journalist is cited by RT as the "primary spokesman for the German point of view, featuring him on talk shows and extended interviews on the network scores of times over the past four years". Ochsenreiter's neo-Nazi connection was first spotted by Adam Holland on The Interpreter.

Ochsenreiter's neo-Nazi ties are likely to be a source of embarrassment for a news outlet that acted as a mouthpiece for Putin's repeated claims that the Ukrainian revolution was hijacked by Jew-haters, neo-Nazis and anti-Semites.

RT has been criticised for its passionate bias towards president Putin.

An English-language network aimed at a global audience, RT broadcasts news, documentaries and talk show with a strong pro-Russian stance.

In its coverage of the Crimea invasion, RT repeated the official Kremlin line about troops being local self-defence forces.