BERLIN — "We can do it" was Angela Merkel's defiant response to the migration crisis engulfing Europe. A year later, those words still resonate — but not in the way she intended.

The German chancellor didn't just say "wir schaffen das" once; she repeated it time and again, each time enraging her opponents and even members of her own party.

“People are simply tired of hearing ‘we can do it,’” said Karl-Georg Wellmann, a member of the German parliament for Merkel's Christian Democrats. “The German government did a good job reacting to the refugee crisis. But repeating 'we can do it’ over and over again sends out the wrong message.”

Merkel is a cautious politician and didn't rush her reaction to the crisis, when hundreds of thousands of mostly Syrian refugees fled to Europe. The Right predicted the end of civilization, but Merkel took the opposite approach and temporarily opened up Germany's doors.

It was a well-intentioned response to a tragic situation but most analysts agree that her decision to justify it for months on end by saying “we can do it” turned into a communications nightmare for Merkel.

No group has benefited more from Merkel's use of language than the far-right Alternative for Germany.

“The sentence is a prime example of how language is more than just an embellishment to politics,” said Elisabeth Wehling, a German cognitive scientist who teaches at the University of California in Berkley. “Language is politics.”

No group has benefited more from Merkel's use of language than the far-right Alternative for Germany.

“We don’t want to do this, at all,” AfD deputy head Alexander Gauland yelled at a cheering crowd in Erfurt in October. His party's support has skyrocketed in the past year. In August 2015, pollsters had the AfD on 3 percent support. In June 2016, it was at 14 percent.

Devil in the detail

On August 31, 2015, Merkel was fresh from a visit to a refugee center near Dresden where locals had given her a tough time. She was booed and vulgar slurs were hurled in her direction. At the same time, the human cost of the crisis was becoming clearer: A few days earlier, a truck had been found along an Austrian highway with 71 dead refugees inside.

It was against this background that, around 13 minutes into a press conference, Merkel said: "I put it simply, Germany is a strong country ... we have managed so many things — we can do this."

In German, "Wir haben so vieles geschafft – wir schaffen das."

German media picked up on it, but it wasn't until two weeks later that the phrase was first thrown back in Merkel's face.

“The sentence essentially asks to be misused and misappropriated, because it contains a completely unclear reference” — Joachim Scharloth, applied linguistics professor

In mid-September, Werner Faymann, then Austria's chancellor and Merkel's closest European ally on migration, visited Berlin. During a joint press conference, Merkel was asked about critics of her refugee policy.

“I say it again and again: We can manage this, we can do it,” she said defiantly, adding, “If we start having to apologize for showing a friendly face in an emergency situation, then this is not my country.”

"We can do it" went global, at least in part because of the soundbite's similarity to Barack Obama's "Yes we can."

But it's not quite as simple as that.

The German “Wir schaffen das” does not express the same degree of enthusiasm as “we can do it” does in English. Instead, it implies “we will manage the situation, because we have no other choice.”

Merkel’s complete sentence, in its original context, would more accurately translate as, “We have managed so many things — we will also manage this situation.”

That's nowhere near as catchy as "we can do it."

“The sentence essentially asks to be misused and misappropriated, because it contains a completely unclear reference,” said Joachim Scharloth, a professor of applied linguistics at Dresden University of Technology. “When she says ‘we can do it’ — what does she mean when she says 'it’?

“First of all, the sentence in itself does not say a lot,” said Scharloth. “And, more importantly, she felt the need to [use] the sentence again and again. This is not a sign of good communication.”

Cognitive scientists talk of "negative framing.” In layman's terms, that's invalidating your opponent’s argument by exaggerating it to such a degree that it sounds implausible. One of the basic rules of political communication is to prevent this; a good communications strategy tries to make a point while at the same time stopping opponents from seizing on it for their own ends.

On those terms, "we can do it" was a resounding failure.

“Merkel’s sentence was supposed to evoke values of unity and empathy,” said Wehling, who has written a book called "Political Framing."

“However, Merkel put this statement out completely isolated, without any counterbalance. This allowed her opponents to pick it up, caricature it, and to rebrand it as a denial of reality, along the lines of, ‘We can do anything — everyone is free to come here.'”

But Merkel has stood firm even as the national mood soured following the New Year's Eve mass sexual assaults in Cologne and the violent attacks that took place this summer, three out of four of which were carried out by migrants.

In her annual summer press conference in late July, she said, “I stand by the political decisions we’ve made," adding: "I didn’t say it would be easy.”

Opinion polls say two out of three Germans don't believe their country can "do it."

“I said back then, and I’ll say it again, Germany is a strong country. I called it a task for the whole nation. But just as we’ve managed so much already, we’ll manage this.”

Germans aren't so sure, with opinion polls saying two out of three don't believe that Germany can "do it" and one communications adviser called the sentence "politically poisonous."

No respite

With two regional elections coming in September — in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin — the chorus of criticism is getting louder.

“Many of our voters understand it as if we could, indefinitely, continue to take in more people,” said the CDU's Wellmann. “Chancellor Merkel might not even mean to say that, but this is how it’s being perceived — and that’s why people I meet in my constituency tell me that they are just sick of hearing that sentence.”

In mid-August, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière, Merkel’s former chief of staff and one of her most loyal companions, tried to defend her.

“No one said we could do this with no sweat,” de Maizière told the Sunday edition of Tagesspiegel newspaper, “Neither did the chancellor.”

His interview went largely unnoticed. Instead, the headlines went to Sigmar Gabriel, leader of the Social Democrats, the junior partner in the coalition, who on the same weekend told Funke Media Group: "'We can do it' ... has been a great mistake."