The creator and driving force behind a neo-Nazi internet portal was on Thursday handed a jail term by a court sitting in Stuttgart two years after German authorities shut the site down.

The state court sentenced the unnamed "Altermedia" creator, who was described as young, from the Black Forest region and an IT specialist, to two years and six months in jail.

He was found guilty of being the ringleader of a criminal association and of incitement after heading the right-wing extremist internet platform for years.

Three co-accused, all women, received suspended sentences ranging from eight months to two years.

In the view of German federal prosecutors, Altermedia was the leading right-wing extremist internet portal in the German-speaking world until it was shut down by the Interior Ministry.

For years it had disseminated extremist and Nazi ideas, with incitement of hatred of foreigners, refugees and Jews being regular themes, the court found. It also denied the Holocaust, a crime in Germany.

The court considered a sample of 30 cases of particularly injurious material, comparisons with vermin, death threats and slander.