Winterkorn resigns - fair enough!
All of a sudden, things moved with lightning speed. On Tuesday, Martin Winterkorn said he wanted to fight for Volkswagen's reputation and ensure full transparency in clearing up the falsified emissions tests scandal. Not least he sought to prevent his own image from being tainted too much.
Twenty-four hours later, the Winterkorn era is history, and that's not a bad thing. After all, we're talking about the image of the German auto industry as a whole, about the image of German industry abroad. A fresh start is urgently needed at the Volkswagen Group.
Winterkorn was an old-school executive – more of a patriarch than CEO of a leading, globally operating company. And that was not a modern management concept. But he had to step down from his post, because he'd lost control over his company, a firm he'd previously turned into the world's largest carmaker in terms of sales.
But in times of crisis, past achievements tend to fade away quickly. Only a while ago, supervisory board members called him the "best possible" executive to head VW, but now they have no more trust in him.
Winterkorn didn't cut a good figure at Wednesday's crisis meeting at the Wolfsburg headquarters. The presidium representing VW's largest shareholders had no other choice than to fire Winterkorn. All the more so since he didn't want to step down voluntarily days ahead of a decision on whether or not to extend his contract - as previously planned when there was no talk of a scandal yet.
But that would have been unthinkable now not least because of all the legal insecurities in place. At the end of the day, it all looked like a concerted action. Employees and their representatives were worrying about the fate of VW's global workforce of 600,000. And shareholders were worrying about their money and the company's reputation.
It must have been the worst day in the life of Winterkorn, a man who'd grown used to being extremely successful. At the end of his spectacular career, he's faced with a complete mess. He could have avoided such an awkward situation, had he made room for a younger successor well before the current scandal unfolded.
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