The new Greek deputy transport minister, Dimitris Kammenos, was sacked 12 hours into his job for comparing the European Union to a concentration camp and calling homosexuals "pathetic".

The announcement that Mr Kammenos, an MP from the nationalist Independent Greeks party, would take a cabinet position in Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras's new coalition government triggered a public uproar.

In April, Mr Kammenos asked on Twitter: "Have you recorded the attacks of the Jews against all of us?", and in June posted on Facebook a photograph of Auschwitz superimposed with the words "We will stay in Europe".

The Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece wrote to Mr Tsipras expressing satisfaction that "on Yom Kippur, a person that had expressed hideous and insulting views against Jews, civilization and democracy... was removed from your government".

US anti-racism watchdog the Anti-Defamation League praised the "swift and principled response to the disturbing disclosure of a series of bigoted and intensive comments made by Mr Dimitris Kammenos".

Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, President of the Conference of European Rabbis, said: "The reported despicable nature of Dimitris Kammenos's social media posts have no place in society. The references are those of an unhinged antisemitic conspiracy theorist."