A German city has elected a Jewish mayor nearly 80 years after the Nazis came to power.

Peter Feldmann won 57 per cent of the vote to become Frankfurt's mayor, a position he will take on in July.

Mr Feldmann is not the first Jewish mayor of Frankfurt – the city was run by Ludwig Landmann between 1924 and 1933 – but he is the first since the Holocaust. In fact, no major German city has voted in a Jewish mayor since the Nazi era.

Mr Feldmann, a liberal Jew, is from the German Social Democrat party and five years ago he co-founded the SDP's Jewish wing.

The pre-war Jewish community of Frankfurt was the second largest in Germany, numbering 30,000. It now stands at 7,000 – roughly one per cent of the city's population. Mr Feldmann said his Jewish identity had no impact on the campaign, which he said was "a testament to the strength of our open and liberal city".