The Central Council of German Sinti and Roma has lodged a criminal complaint against the co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party over a "gypsy" comment made at a campaign rally.
Tino Chrupalla addressed voters on Friday in the north-eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, which is holding state elections on September 20.
During his speech in the town of Grimmen, he touched on the recent discovery of two pistols in a forest near Berlin, which prosecutors say may have been deposited there by an intelligence agent with the intention to carry out attacks.
Media reports suggest that the weapons may have been planted on behalf of Russian intelligence, though German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has not officially linked Moscow to the find.
Chrupalla, whose Russia-friendly party has called for the lifting of sanctions imposed over the war in Ukraine, described the reports as propaganda, and said to applause that the pistols had "probably been lost by some gypsies while they were looking for mushrooms."
The council said it was "stunned that, 81 years after Auschwitz," a far-right party "is once again cynically inciting hatred against Sinti and Roma in the election campaign."
The criminal complaint filed with prosecutors in the south-western city of Heidelberg, where the central council is based, centres on charges of incitement to hatred and defamation.
Chrupalla later said his comments had not been aimed at Germany's Sinti and Roma communities when asked about the incident. "If I have offended anyone, that was not my intention."