Speakers at a conference held by the white supremacist, pro-Trump National Policy Institute in Washington on Saturday night railed against Jews and evoked Nazi imagery and language.

The New York Times reported that the final speaker of the evening, the institute’s founder Richard Spencer, suggested that the media had been critical of Mr Trump throughout the campaign in order to protect Jewish interests. He also said America belonged to white people and, in the era of President-elect Donald Trump, were “awakening to their own identity”.

He ended his speech with the words, “Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory!”, which was met with a rapturous applause and Hitler salutes.

Another speaker, Jared Taylor, who founded the white supremacist site American Renaissance, said the alt-right movement was “in unanimity” in rejecting “the idea that the races are basically equivalent and interchangeable.”

In March, the Breitbart News website — formerly headed by Mr Trump’s pick as chief strategist, Steve Bannon — ran a piece that praised Spencer as a key member of a “fearsomely intelligent group of thinkers”.

The US Holocaust Museum issued a statement saying it was “deeply alarmed at the hateful rhetoric” at the NPI conference and that Spencer’s allusion to Jewish media control “closely echoes Adolf Hitler’s view of Jews”.

A Washington restaurant, Maggiano’s Little Italy, apologised after inadvertently hosting members of the NPI for dinner on Friday.

The restaurant said the booking had been made under a different name and that it would donate the profits from the night to the Anti-Defamation League, an anti-racism watchdog.