Controversy: Jamie Oliver

Jamie Oliver caused controversy last night by making an apparent reference to the Holocaust.

The 33-year-old celebrity chef told a live audience how his Jamie’s Fowl Dinners show, about the treatment of intensively farmed chickens, was shown around the world.

The Naked Chef presenter quipped that only German viewers had complained about the controversial scene in which a group of chicks was gassed in an example of cruel industry practices.

Oliver, who campaigns for livestock welfare and healthier school meals, said: 'We had a lot of complaints about the gassing of chicks in Germany.

'It’s gone all around the world and the one country that has a problem with it is Germany. I thought “F****** hell!”’

The comments were interpreted as a reference to the Nazi regime’s use of gas chambers to kill millions of Jews during the Second World War.

However, the joke was met with an uneasy silence among the audience of 300 at the Edinburgh TV Festival.

German writer Udo Seiwert-Fauti, who heard the remarks, said: ‘I wanted to stand up and say, “Hey, after 65 years why do you need to bring that up?” It was a very unwise thing to say. I was shocked.’

Oliver also used the session to plug his four-part Channel 4 series Ministry Of Food, which goes out this autumn. In it, he visits four towns on a mission to revive home cooking skills.

He said: ‘Sometimes I think of myself as a chef, but really I am a professional s*** stirrer.’

Animal campaigners said the decision to use footage of chicks being killed was ‘misguided’.

It was also claimed the production lighting and television crews would have added to the birds’ distress.

Oliver had earlier caused controversy by criticising supermarket chain Sainsbury’s, which pays him £1million to appear in adverts, for failing to take part in a debate on the programme.

In one episode, screened in January, male chicks of no use to egg production were put into a container and starved of oxygen.

The RSPCA said that while it welcomed the aims of the programme, it disagreed with killing the animals in a studio.

Oliver said: ‘I don’t think it is sensational to show people the reality of how chickens live and die at the moment.

'It may be upsetting for some people, but that’s how things are.’

The latest TV campaign will see the chef travel to Rotherham, where he will try to convince families to make meals from scratch rather than eating takeaways.

But his attempts have already provoked a negative reaction. He was the object of obscene chants when he appeared at the local football club.