"Wir schaffen das," Angela Merkel said as displaced people — many fleeing Syria's civil war — arrived en masse in 2015 and politicians at all levels fretted loudly about Germany's ability to accommodate them. Those words, often translated as "we'll manage it" or "we can do it," were the chancellor's statement of faith in Germany's and Germans' capacity for empathy and structural support for the hundreds of thousands of people who arrived that year.

A decade on, many of the refugees remain, having made lives in the country and successfully integrated into the national labor market. But the political fallout from Merkel's bold proclamation continues, leaving many to wonder: Has Germany managed it?