BERLIN (EJP)---Germany’s Central Council of Jews on Tuesday urged the Bundesbank, the country’s central bank, to sack a board member who polarized the nation by making racist comments about Muslim immigrants and asserting that Jews have particular genes.

Dieter Graumann, Vice President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said Bundesbank board member Thilo Sarrazin was out of line, even as polls showed many Germans support his views.

"The central bank shouldn't have anything to do with Sarrazin," Graumann told the Handelsblatt newspaper. "He's causing massive damage to the Bundesbank. This can't go on."

“His racial ideology puts Sarrazin firmly in the extreme-right camp,” Stephan Kramer, the Council’s general secretary, said. "He should consider joining the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party of Germany," Kramer told the Handelsblatt newspaper.

"At least that would make the battle lines more obvious," Kramer said, and it would free the Social Democrats from having to kick him out.

The central bank has admonished Sarrazin and warned of further action. But it is difficult to dismiss a board member because of the charter which protects its independence.

Sarrazin, 65, a former Finance Minister for the state of Berlin, has published a book titled "Deutschland schafft sich ab" (Germany does away with itself) in which he argues Muslim immigrants are undermining German society, refusing to integrate and sponging off the state. He also suggests that Jews and others possess superior genes.

In the book, he writes: "I don't want my grandchildren and great-grandchildren to live in a mostly Muslim country where Turkish and Arabic are widely spoken, women wear headscarves and the day's rhythm is determined by the call of the muezzin."

On Wednesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said many people would find the remarks "offensive" and "defamatory". 

Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told reporters he "would be ashamed if a leading member of my party had behaved this way," when asked about the 65-year-old Sarrazin’s comments.

Sarrazin is a member of the centre-left Social Democrat party (SPD).

Sarrazin rejected accusations of stirring up racism in Germany, home to at least four million Muslims, mainly of Turkish origin. It is also home to an estimated 280,000 Arabs.

"I am not a racist," he told Die Zeit newspaper, insisting his conclusions about the danger to Germany from Muslim immigrants were based not on ethnic differences but on cultural heritage.