Ken Livingstone has admitted Labour's explosive anti-Semitism row cost his party votes, but denied he was to blame.
The former London mayor triggered outrage when he said that Hitler supported Zionism.
He was eventually suspended from the party but not until after a Labour MP accused of being a "Nazi apologist".
Mr Livingstone instead blamed "far right" Labour MPs and accused them of stoking up division in the party.
He also claimed that the row was an attempt to damage Jeremy Corbyn's leadership.
Other leading Labour figures have admitted that accusations the party has a problem with anti-Semitism cost the party support.
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said that the row had set the party back, with big swings to the Tories in Eastwood, which has a significant Jewish community.
Mr Livingstone said that the "anti-Semitism nonsense" had had a detrimental effect on Sadiq Khan's campaign to become mayor of London and in elections elsewhere.
Mr Livingstone said: "Sadiq was running 16 per cent ahead in the polls before all that anti-Semitism nonsense blew up and nationally we were five points ahead of the Tories, not one.
"So I think it's definitely been damaging and I say to those Labour MPs that made this into a great issue and demanded my suspension, you have cost us seats all over the country."
Questioned on the fallout over his comments, he said: "The simple fact is, so many people have gone on to the internet now, they have seen Joseph Finkelstein's brilliant interview.
"A lot of people, it's a shock to discover there had been that relationship between a small section of the Jewish community in Germany and Adolf Hitler but it's historically true.
"And the simple reality of all of that is we shouldn't be ashamed about some of the mistakes our government has made in the past and I don't think the people of Israel, don't need to be ashamed of what happened 80 years ago."
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