The Greek neo-Nazi party, Golden Dawn, is believed to have set up a cell in Nuremberg, the German city that gave its name to the Nazis’ antisemitic Nuremberg Laws.

A Bavarian office for the protection of the constitution told the Guardian that Golden Dawn was also cultivating a “network of neo-Nazi contacts” in the federal state. This was denied by the Greek party.

A statement released by the Federation of Greek Communities in Germany called the cell’s existence an “insult” and a “disgrace”, adding that it did not believe the choice of Nuremberg had been coincidental.

Nuremberg played an important role in the functioning of Nazi Germany. It was the site of mass rallies before the war and where the Reichstag was convened to pass the laws revoking citizenship for German Jews.

Golden Dawn said in a statement on its website that there were Golden Dawn groups “not only in Germany” but abroad, including the USA, Canada and Australia.

The news of the spread of the far-right party into Europe comes in the same week as the party’s biggest rally in Greece since the election.

Five thousand Golden Dawn supporters marched past the Turkish and US embassies in Athens last weekend chanting anti-immigration slogans, in a protest billed as a “remembrance rally”. Wearing military fatigues, baseball caps and swastikas, the demonstrators marched under neo-Nazi banners, lit torches and fired flares, independent sources report.

Golden Dawn said the demonstration was organised to commemorate three pilots killed during a Greek dispute with Turkey in 1996.