(CNN) A leading far-right German politician has announced his departure from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in order to create his own political organization.

The new party's logo includes a cornflower, which was also adopted as a secret symbol by Nazis in the 1930s.

André Poggenburg, a former leading figure in the AfD in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, resigned this week with an email sent to the leadership, in which he criticized the party's supposed move to the left.

"Unfortunately, developments inside the AfD in the past weeks and months have shown, that this is no longer my true political home," he said in the email, which was seen by German news site Spiegel Online.

His new party is called Aufbruch der deutschen Patrioten (Awakening of German Patriots), and Poggenburg has updated his social media profiles with party logos featuring a cornflower with a German flag. The flower was previously worn as a secret symbol identifying members of the then-illegal Nazi party in Austria in the 1930s. It was also the favorite flower of Kaiser Wilhelm -- the last German emperor and king of Prussia -- and came to be a symbol of pan-German nationalism in the 19th century.

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