MALCOLM BRABANT:

Of all the nationalists grouping here, it is the Alternative for Germany Party which appears to be faltering, although it remains the third most popular in the country.

After the Christmas market truck massacre in Berlin, there was a surge in support. But that appears to have been temporary, as, according to the latest opinion polls, its national approval numbers are down to 11 percent.

And the reason for that appears to be that Chancellor Merkel's government has promised a new raft of security measures, including the fast deportation of criminal refugees and migrants.

Providing more workers for Germany's powerhouse economy was one of Merkel's justifications for her open door immigration policy. With elections looming this autumn, Merkel's Christian Democratic Union is perceived as having a steadier hand on the tiller of prosperity than the untested AFD, or Alternative for Germany Party.

At Koblenz's biggest monument, the AFD's alleged Nazi tendencies were satirized with cardboard cutouts of Second World War dictators. That impression was reinforced after one of its senior members said that Germany should abandon what he called its shameful memories about the Holocaust.

This might explain the subdued speech of party leader Frauke Petry on the banks of the Rhine.

FRAUKE PETRY, Alternative for Germany Party (through interpreter): We have to expose those who call for a more powerful European Union as the true anti-Europeans, the true anti-democrats. We have an answer to these spineless technocrats. And that answer is people and politicians who are going to take back Europe and restore its freedom and sovereignty.