The president of Thuringia’s regional Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which is the country’s main domestic intelligence agency, said he considers one in five Germans to be right-wing extremists, specifically using the phrase “brown dregs.”

“We’re at about 20 percent brown filth in the Federal Republic,” Kramer told broadcaster NDR Info after Alternative for Germany’s landmark election victory in the district of Sonneberg, which came after the AfD hit a polling high of 20 percent nationwide, or one in five Germans. The “brown” reference is clearly an allusion to the Nazi brownshirts, with many on the left and within the establishment media routinely attempting to frame the AfD party as National Socialists.

Kramer, who is himself a member of the left-wing Social Democrats (SPD), said that he still has “hope” of reaching AfD voters.