Berlin - The tally of votes for far-right parties in Germany's general election diminished sharply compared to four years ago, official results Monday show.

The National Democratic Party (NPD) and the German People's Union (DVU) between them won support from 681,000 voters, well down from the 858,000 who voted for those two anti-foreigner parties in 2005 when they were joined by an electoral pact.

Neither party won any federal seats this time, nor have they ever done so. Under German law, parties must cross a threshold of 5 per cent of the nationwide vote to become entitled to any parliamentary seats.

The results are provisional until all the tallies have been checked.

The outcome meant only 1.5 per cent of the 44 million Germans who turned out to vote this year supported the extreme rightists, although there were some states, such as Saxony, where support spiked up to 4 per cent.

The NPD scored a notable success, with 12.5 per cent of the votes, in a border town north-east of Berlin where it had campaigned against an alleged "invasion of Poles" buying and renting homes.

A spokesman for the municipality of Loecknitz said this was still a good deal less than the 20 per cent the NPD won in the town at its last local-body election, in 2006.

About 200 Polish nationals have permanent homes in Loecknitz. An NPD poster with the words "Stop the Invasion of Poles" was prohibited this month on the grounds that it incited to ethnic hatred.(dpa)