Germany’s national railway company has been accused of “tastelessness” and “insensitivity” after a decision to name a new high-speed train after the teenage Holocaust victim Anne Frank.

Deutsche Bahn claimed Frank, who became famous after her death at the age of 15 for her diary recording her life in hiding in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, was chosen as a symbol of “tolerance”.

But critics said the name was inappropriate because Frank was one of millions of Jews who were taken to their deaths in concentration camps by German trains.

“The combination of Anne Frank and a train evokes associations with the persecution of the Jews and the deportations during the Second World War,” the Anne Frank Foundation said in a statement.

“Naming a train after Anne Frank is insensitive,” Iris Eberl, an MP from Angela Merkel’s Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) said on Twitter.

The decision came after Deutsche Bahn called announced it would name 25 new high-speed trains after historic figures and called for public suggestions.