> There initially was quite a bit of resistance to doing so

I don't know why this impression is so widespread. The prosecutor's office started investigations immediately, there have been quite a few raids in offices and private homes over all this time, yet, online commenters always claim that Germany wouldn't prosecute (or would not prosecute managers).

Heard someone saying "What took so long?" in my office.

I pointed out that the Enron scandal events started in the 90s, started making news in 2001, and Skilling was sentenced in 2006.

The wheels of justice grind slowly.

There's a difference though - in the US those wheels never really grind, so, I was assuming nothing would ever come from this... Apparently Germany actually likes justice and laws though?

Jeffrey Skilling in fact served 12 years in federal prison. The wheels did grind eventually.

And how many people who have done worse have received similar punishments since?

Not sure what you are talking about, the US jailed a VW executive in 2017 already [1].

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/dec/06/oliver-schm...

The wheels of justice grind slowly, but mince very finely.

When people are Outraged(TM) and they want someone's (metaphorical) head on a platter Now(TM), not after going through all those boring technicalities that come with the outdated concept known as due process.

(in case it's not, the /s should be obvious)

The German government owns 25% of VW. It is reasonable to suggest they wouldn't want to do a real investigation and bring charges as doing so directly hurts their best interest. It is even reasonable to suggest that the immediate investigations would have been called off if the German government felt they could get away with it, but public pressure has forced this.

Of course reasonable doesn't mean it is the truth. I have no idea what the truth is, but the fears are reasonable.

> The German government owns 25% of VW.

That’s not quite correct. The shares are owned by the state of Niedersachsen, not the federal government. And they don’t own 25%. They own 11.8%, though they have 20% of the voting rights.

I stand corrected.

Sure, German prosecutors regularly get dissuaded from investigating a crime, because the government said so.

Oh, and public pressure just made the politicians stop. On the other hand public pressure can never stop copyright reform because politicians clearly don't care about the voters.

Maybe you should readjust your mental image of Germany.

Maybe you need to readjust your image of what happens. If it isn't for the vigilance of the people all of the above can happen. They happen in other countries. Corruption of those in powers is a constant in the world, Germany is doing okay now, but it just takes one blink and things can go bad - as they have in many other countries throughout history.

Yep, politics is the key contribution to our intellectual dark ages.

German prosecutors are not independent but have to follow the authority of the ministry of justice. So in principle, politicians can stop the prosecutors. They would rarely do so as that would be the bigger scandal in the end.

Analogous to Samsung’s relationship with SK and the feet dragging over reproductive health hazards that went unreported in certain photoresists banned in the west.

Not sure what made anybody think otherwise. There are strict laws such that any owners or upper management (CEO) if responsible for criminal offenses will be privately fined. That means their own fortunes are at risk here. This isn't the US. VW was already fined. They're done. Now Winterkorn and the others are being charged and any fines demanded by the court will be paid from their private fortunes. Also, there will be jail time and fines involved if they're found guilty.

> Not sure what made anybody think otherwise

Maybe a lifetime of seeing governments fail to enforce laws against the rich?

The US is not done with VW. The SEC has just filed a lawsuit against VW for lying to investors.

Which is funny because I don't see the SEC holding any American company or executive accountable for all the shit that they pull. Anyway, I was talking about Germany.

> the government seemed eager to believe the obviously bogus claim that it was just a few rogue engineers perpetrating this crime.

The legislative is not the executive is not the judicial. Don't throw the whole government into one basket.

Don't even throw the whole of a single branch of government into one basket.

There's a lot of independent actors and parties involved.

How did it cost thousands of lives?

It's extrapolation based on the effects of that type of pollution and the amount of pollution.

It's not wrong but it's not telling the whole truth either. More rigorous metrics like YPLL would be better. A 20yo that drops dead is different from an elderly person that dies of lung issues a few years before cancer would have got them and more meaningful metrics attempt to capture this. "Deaths" is just a number and it doesn't tell you much. Age adjusted metrics don't make for bolt headlines or effective emotional appeals so it's understandable why nobody uses them.

Yeah, that's what really irks me about people making direct death comparisons over air pollution, especially when the QoL factor is excuse enough. Calculating the decrease in life expectancy of at-risk patients and then somehow suming them up is much more honest than implying the death of an elderly lung cancer patient a month early is a life destroyed by pollution.

This conversation is a lot less abstract if you know someone with COPD or severe asthma. The condition kills them but the pollution pulls the trigger.

We probably should have all the major execs sitting on death row for the deaths "caused" by leaded fuel belching out of cars with no emissions controls at all.

In places where diesel isn't placed on a pedestal to suppress gasoline usage, air quality is far better than it was 40 years ago.

For those that did not know, YPLL=Years of Potential Life Lost. Commonly used when estimating pollution impacts.

The NY Times published an article[1] in 2015 that asked a few public health experts to estimate the loss of life in the US due to the fraud.

An MIT study claims over 1,200 premature deaths in Europe due to the fraud. [2][3]

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/upshot/how-many-deaths-di...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/science/volkswagen-emissi...

[3] https://news.mit.edu/2017/volkswagen-emissions-premature-dea...

Excess diesel exhaust particles, multiplied by liters of fuel flowing through the cars over the years. (Edit:) The cars were allowed to emit a certain amount of dangerous substances, causing X amounts of deaths per year. Instead they in reality emitted a larger amount, and caused X + Y deaths per year.

So VW traded Y number of deaths for extra marketshare and profit.

Now I'm really curious what is unscientific about my little explanation?

'literally cost thousands of lives' < How so?

Manager: "Do this on time and under budget or you're fired"

Engineer: "The only way to do that is to..."

Manager interrupts: "I don't care about the details. You said it could be done"

Engineer (silently): "Ok well I guess I'll go to jail or see my family fall on hard times"

In this case Engineer is played by the head of the division for VW.