German vice-chancellor Sigmar Gabriel was filmed giving far right protesters the middle finger when they taunted him at a Social Democrat party event in Salzgitter.

In a video of the incident published on Tuesday (17 August) one of the protesters goads Gabriel, who is also leader of the centre-left Social Democrat Party (SPD), about his father's Nazi past: "Your father loved his country and what you are doing? You destroy it."

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Instead of responding, Gabriel lifts his middle finger and walks away.

The SPD issued a statement, saying Gabriel was provoked by "violent neo-Nazis" in the incident, which took place on Friday in the state of Niedersachsen.

Gabriel has spoken previously of his father's Nazi allegiance.

In June, he compared the rhetoric of the anti-immigrant Alternativ fur Deutschland Party to that of the Nazis. "Everything that they are saying, I've already heard — just to be clear — from my own father, who was a Nazi to his last breath," Gabriel told German media.

Gabriel has welcomed the arrival of refugees and migrants into Germany as a means of encouraging integration.