Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief of staff called Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s statements “absolutely unacceptable.”

“Germany cannot be outmatched regarding the rule of law, tolerance and liberalism,” he told German public Television ARD.

Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert said the German government “strongly rejected” the equation of modern Germany with Nazi Germany, adding that such comparisons downplayed the crimes of the Nazis.