PHOTOTHEK/ ANADOLU Frauke Petry warned Angela Merkel she faces civil war unless she handles the migrant crisis

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Frauke Petry said the German government needs to act quickly to manage the new arrivals. The chairwoman of the populist right-wing party Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) warned the crisis could escalate branding the current situation “unacceptable”. Mrs Petry, 41, said: “We have so far not seen mass demonstrations against migrants in major German cities. But what is going on is unacceptable.

We do not want a civil war in Germany. However, the majority of asylum seekers are not genuine refugees, many alleged Syrians came from other countries Frauke Petry

"We do not want a civil war in Germany. However, the majority of asylum seekers are not genuine refugees, many alleged Syrians came from other countries. "If the citizens really become aware of that, their attitude to all migrants will deteriorate massively towards all real refugees. We do not want that, therefore we need to act quickly." The AfD leader also caused outrage in Germany after saying the word ‘voelkisch’, which has Nazi connotations, should be revived.

‘Voelkisch’ was used by the Nazis to set Germans apart from Jewish people and others they labelled ‘racially inferior’ and was used regularly in Nazi propaganda. German dictionary Duden defines 'voelkisch' as "people as a purported race in the ideology of National Socialism". Mrs Petry said: "It is unacceptable to reduce the word ‘voelkisch’ to ‘racist’.

EPA Frauke Petry branded the migrant crisis "unacceptable"

“We need to work on giving the concept positive connotations." The AfD, initially an anti-euro party, had a meteoric rise as the party of choice for voters angry at Germany’s open door migrant policy. It surprised many by finishing second ahead of Mrs Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in last week's elections in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, which is the German leader's home state.

PHOTOTHEK 1.1 million migrants have entered Germany under Angela Merkel's leadership

Mrs Merkel faced humiliation as her CDU party came third in the elections. The CDU got just 19 per cent of the vote in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania behind the anti-immigration AfD on 21 per cent and the victorious SPD on 30 per cent. The vote, which was the lowest support for the CDU ever in the state, was seen as a key test ahead of next year’s general election.

Migrant crisis: Key locations before and after Tue, April 4, 2017 In these composite images, a comparison has been made between a scene at a key location during the height of the 2015 migrant crisis last year and the view there now Play slideshow Getty Images 1 of 10 Aid workers help migrants up the shore after making the crossing from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos on November 16, 2015 in Sikaminias, Greece

Under Mrs Merkel’s leadership, Germany has been taking in huge numbers of migrants - 1.1million last year. The defeat saw local AfD leader Leif-Erik Holm claim the result could signal the end for Mrs Merkel’s chancellorship. Opponents branded the result a protest vote following on from Mrs Merkel’s controversial immigration policy.

LIGHTROCKET The SPD members on election night in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern