BSW

Now there is a legal challenge to the election result from the BSW party, which most people in the U.S. have never heard of, saying they would have reached the 5 percent threshold to be represented in Parliament if Germans abroad could have voted.

Wagenknecht's popularity soared for a while as head of her BSW party, but ultimately fell just below the 5% threshold for getting into parliament.

Like Alice Weidel's AfD, Sahra Wagenknecht and her BSW party back closer relations with Russia and has built a strong support base in eastern Germany.

Another new populist political party could also get into parliament for the first time, the anti-migrant nativist far-left Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance BSW, which is named after its firebrand Marxist leader.

The far-right AfD and the new far-left populist BSW, which together could win between a quarter and third of votes in the election, accuse the government of not doing enough to bring about a peace deal.