Andre Poggenburg, a leading member of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party, has dubbed the Turkish community "camel herders" and "caraway traders," at the same time reminding that Turkey is the successor state of the ottoman Empire which masterminded and perpetrated the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923.

Poggenburg is state chairman of his party in the federal state of Saxony-Anhalt and leading candidate at the 2016 Saxony-Anhalt state elections.

Poggenburg was reacting to Turkish groups who oppose the concept of a new Home Ministry as proposed in the new German government coalition agreement, saying it harks back to the Nazi era and might divide the country rather than unite it.

But the plan is popular with the AfD, which bounced into the German Bundestag in last year's elections and has only seen its support grow amid political bickering by the more established parties.

"These caraway traders have the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians weighing them down ... and they want to tell us something about history and homeland? They're nuts. These camel herders should set off to where they belong," Poggenburg said on Wednesday, February 14.

Some three dozen countries, hundreds of local government bodies and international organizations have so far recognized the killings of 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide.

Turkey denies to this day.