Frank Magnitz, chairman of Germany’s AfD party, was left with a gaping wound in his head after being knocked unconscious by three attackers on Monday.
He was reportedly ambushed after leaving a New Year's party in Frankfurt's Goethe Square.
Gruesome images posited on the AfD Bremen Facebook page show the politician lying on a hospital bed with blood pouring from a large wound on his head.
The party has described the assault as a “politically-motivated attempted assassination.”
Magnitz was beaten around the head after being knocked out cold by the three men, the AfD said.
The party chairman was saved by a builer who broke up the attack and chased off the suspects.
German police have yet to arrest the three alleged attackers, according to reports.
Magnitz remains in hospital in a serious condition, according to a AfD spokesman.
They said: "Today is a black day for democracy in Germany."
When were the AfD founded?
The party was founded in April 2013 ahead of that year’s federal elections in September.
Starting as an anti-euro party, the AfD was a reaction to the European debt crisis which had seen Germany bailout some of the EU’s struggling economies.
Their first manifesto called for less centralised powers in Brussels and the scrapping of the Euro currency.
But despite an impressive showing in the 2013 election – winning 4.7 per cent of the vote – the AfD failed to gain the five per cent needed to enter the German parliament.
The party filled the space left by Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative CDU which has shifted towards the political centre.
But while the AfD capitalised on Europe’s economic discord, it was Merkel’s reaction to the refugee crisis that propelled the far-right party into the Bundestag.
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