“It is not only cheap. It is also despicable. The interest of the AfD in Jews does not extend any further than using us as a fig leaf for their own demagogy,” Josef Schuster said in an interview with the Sueddeutsche Zeitung published Wednesday.

“If a few, very few, Jewish people make themselves available as a group called ‘Jews in the AfD’ then it will definitely refute the old preconception that all Jews are shrewd,” he said.

The council is not in talks with the AfD, according to Schuster.

“If leading politicians from this party demand a ‘180-degree shift in the politics of memory,’ insult the Holocaust memorial as a ‘memorial of shame’ and refer to the Nazi era as ‘bird shit,’ then there is no basis for that,” he said.

The AfD started as a eurosceptic party but has shifted its focus to refugees and immigration issues in recent years. It regularly faces accusations of nationalism and xenophobia.

Alexander Gauland, a leading figure in the AfD, caused outrage when he tried to downplay Germany’s Nazi years as “just bird shit” in the country’s 1,000-year history in comments several years ago.

In Schuster’s opinion, the AfD’s behaviour is “only destructive and directed against democracy.”