Chapter 6: Tell the Truth Part 1

| Part 1: My Analogy | Part 2: My Reality |

Fahrvergnügen

“VW offers attractive, safe and environmentally sound vehicles that set world standards in their respective class” – Volkswagen 2013 mission statement

~~~~~~~~~~

Wolfgang Gaslinger had risen through the ranks at VW; his first job as a mechanic at a Hamburg Volkswagen dealership had paid for his schooling, and he promptly put his marketing degree to use as a car salesman at the same dealership. His thorough knowledge of each car’s engine helped him gain the trust of his loyal customers. He didn’t need to exert any high-pressure sales tactics on them; his confidence in the Volkswagen brand came across naturally, and one way or another, he always managed to turn his customers into die-hard VW fans and repeat customers in the end.

Wolfgang’s words weren’t just a sales pitch; he absolutely loved VWs, and his enthusiasm for the company ran deep. When he was a child, his family had travelled around Europe in a classic Kombi camper van. In high school, his best friend had a Cabrio that had provided some much-needed magnetism at the beach. And after starting a family of his own, the first car he bought his daughter when she got her driver’s license was a retro Beetle. Throughout his life, the VW brand had brought him nothing but pleasant, positive memories.

Fueled by this passion, Wolfgang excelled in his role, and his sales records consistently topped the boards over his peers. His accomplishments eventually landed him a position as a regional sales manager, a job that he naturally embraced. As he continued to climb the executive ladder over the years, he learned more and more about the company structure and how it lined up with the mission statement that he had memorized in his own inductions.

A few years into his corporate career, Wolfgang was asked to move to the company headquarters in Wolfsburg, where his duties included training new sales managers. One of his favorite tasks in that role involved teaching new sales managers the company history. He thoroughly enjoyed his research on the topic, and he put together a set of compelling images and videos for his presentations. He did such a great job with his delivery of historical subject matters that the board of directors ultimately asked him to direct the publication of a book that would commemorate VW’s 80-year anniversary as a company. He dove wholeheartedly into the task and was offered unfettered access to the company library. He found himself fascinated by the early history of the corporation in particular, much of which was absolutely new to him.

In all his years at VW, for example, nobody had ever mentioned the company’s Nazi ties. Wolfgang had once run across a Wikipedia photograph of Adolf Hitler opening the first VW plant, and he had mentioned his surprise to one of his mentors at the time.

“Don’t trust what you read about the company online,” he was told, “after all, Wikipedia authors don’t have any credentials whatsoever.”

“But why would they lie about it?” Wolfgang countered.

“Well, the article was probably written by some Ford driver,” his mentor explained, “someone who wanted to keep people from driving VWs out of pure jealousy.”

The rationale didn’t make much sense to him at the time, but he trusted his mentor, made a case for plausibility, and buried his concerns for the time being.

As he dug through the archives in Wolfsburg, however, he realized that everything he had read about the company’s history online was true after all. Ferdinand Porsche, the company founder, had in fact developed his design for the people’s car – the Volkswagen – under the personal direction of Hitler himself.

Adolf Hitler opens the first Volkswagen plant in 1937

As he read more about Ferdinand’s achievements and the incestuous history of the early automobile industry, he noted VW’s ties to Renault, Daimler-Benz, Mercedes, and even Ford. As it turned out, many of the cars he had been taught to deprecate in his sales work shared the very same origins in hostility.

He knew it might be controversial, but he decided that the inception story was worth telling. He carefully extracted the most palatable pieces of VW’s beginnings and included them in the first manuscript that he submitted to the board of directors for their review.

The board held a special meeting to address the draft copy, and Wolfgang was excited to find himself in the presence of so many of his role models. The first review meeting was directed by the Volkwsagen Group’s CFO, Ferdinand Porsche IV, the great-grandson of the iconic Ferdinand Porsche himself.

“Look, we’ve come a long way as a company,” Ferry the Fourth said as he opened the meeting, “but I’m afraid this book represents a big step backwards.”

Wolfgang’s initial enthusiasm turned to dejection with this opening statement.

“Let me be frank here,” Ferry continued, pointing at the draft manuscript on the table, “the association you’ve highlighted here could result in some unwelcome scrutiny.”

Wolfgang kept his mouth shut, but his head was spinning with possible responses.

“And have you considered our Jewish buyers in particular?” Ferry asked, “Do they really need to have old wounds dug up?”

“If I may,” Wolfgang answered, trying his best not to come across as defensive, “the book focuses on VW’s civilian vehicles before and after the war; I’ve completely ignored their military production lines!”

“Yes, but even so,” Ferry said, “we’re not painting Ferdinand himself in the best light here.”

“Well, I’ve tried to concentrate on his engineering accomplishments,” Wolfgang explained, “and I’ve stayed away from any of his opinions about race or ideology that might offend prospective buyers.”

The comment wasn’t intended as an accusation, but Ferry took it personally. Noting his body language and the discomfort that his comment had stirred around the table, Wolfgang started backpedalling.

“Sorry –“

“Sure, my great-grandfather said some very racist things,” Ferry conceded, “But that doesn’t detract from his accomplishments as an entrepreneur.”

“I completely agree,” said Wolfgang, hoping to find some common ground, “That’s exactly why I left his personal viewpoints out. It doesn’t need to be part of our history anymore, because it’s not who we are today!”

“Well, I’m glad we share that viewpoint on the subject,” Ferry said, “but the book mentions his Nazi party membership and highlights Hitler’s presence at the factory opening.”

“Yes…”

“Do you seriously want to see that in print?” Ferry challenged, “Do people really need to read that our first director was an SS Oberführer who served time as a war criminal?”

“But it’s the truth,” countered Wolfgang.

“Yes, but putting those words in print wouldn’t just shame our own name,” Ferry said, “it would also tarnish Porsche, Audi, Lamborghini, and every other brand in the Volkswagen Group!”

“But anyone with access to Google can find that part of our history online with or without the book,” Wolfgang said, “We can’t hide from the real story.”

“Maybe so, but that doesn’t mean we need to advertise it to the word in our own official publications!”

Sensing the rising blood pressure in the room, the chief tax adviser, Herbert Diess, spoke up for the first time: “Look, do you realize how large a part of Germany’s economy is tied up in Volkswagen AG?”

Wolfgang shrugged his shoulders, surprised that the conversation had taken a financial twist.

“20 percent,” Diess said, “20 percent!”

Wolfgang raised his eyebrows in apparent surprise, although he already knew the figure himself and had, in fact, included key market share statistics in his manuscript.

“One in seven German jobs depends on us,” Diess continued, “People might decide to boycott a vehicle that bears the name of a convicted SS Officer. Have you thought about the consequences of something like that?”

“Hitler also created the Autobahn,” Wolfgang replied, “which in turn inspired the U.S. interstate highway system. Should we try to hide that fact too? For fear that people would start boycotting and stay off the freeways from now on?”

“Well, frankly, I don’t see the relevance to the issue at hand,” Diess said, turning his attention back to Ferry.

“Hitler found lots of support for his antisemitic views in Henry Ford,” Wolfgang continued before Ferry could take control of the meeting back for himself, “If people are going to point fingers, they should boycott Fords, not VWs!”

“We’re only talking about one company here,” Ferry said, “Let’s not get distracted by everyone else’s faults.”

“Well, what I wrote in the book is strictly the facts,” Wolfgang said, “It’s the plain, simple, true history. Isn’t that what you asked me to write?”

“Perhaps you misunderstood our intention in engaging you with this task,” Ferry said, “We wanted you to tell a compelling story: The story of our success! Not dig up mud that could be slung back at us!”

“But it’s a fascinating history,” Wolfgang said, “and it ought to be told without trying to rewrite it.”

“You need to remember that we have called this meeting as a courtesy,” Ferry said with a hint of condescension, “and we have the final say in the book’s content.”

“Of course,” Wolfgang conceded, realizing he was surrounded by the hands that feed him.

“To close out this point,” Ferry said, “I’d just like to say that my grandfather started this company to provide a new kind of car: the people’s car. Not to build war machines! That conversion was forced on him by the Reich. We want this to be about the story of the “Volk” like you and me. That’s the story we want you to tell.”

Wolfgang nodded, looking down at Ferry’s reflection in the varnish of the oversized boardroom table.

“You can tell that story,” Ferry said with an air of authority, “or you can step aside, find yourself a new assignment, and let someone else do the job.”

This challenging statement succeeded in getting the attention of everyone around the table, and Ferry dominated the rest of the meeting agenda without any further dissent from Wolfgang.

Although Wolfgang found the outcome of the discussion disappointing, he accepted the authority of the board and talked himself into agreement with their position based on the importance of maintaining positive branding. Over the next few months he dove back into the book project and dutifully reworked the draft, successfully dodging the contentious issues and rewording the text into a euphemistic history that spun the company in the best possible light. The book was finally published in 2010, and it was an overwhelming success: eventually a copy made it onto the waiting room tables of every VW dealership around the world, and every customer purchasing a VW received a complimentary edition for their own coffee tables.

Wolfgang had gained the trust of his superiors with his compliance. Knowing they had a loyal proponent, the board rewarded his dedication with successive rungs up the corporate ladder, culminating with his appointment as the Volkswagen Group’s Chief Customer and Marketing Officer, reporting directly to the CFO. Ferry personally announced the new appointment at the 2012 annual meeting, which had the air of a political rally. Wolfgang wholeheartedly supported the messages being presented from the podium, and the applause he heard coming from behind his front-row seat at the meeting helped him justify the concessions he had made to spread that message to others.

Ferry Porsche addressing shareholders at the 2012 Annual Meeting

While he was flattered by the recognition, corporate life as an executive of one of the world’s largest publicly traded firms was quite an adjustment. Wolfgang found the lessons learned in compiling the VW history book very handy for his new role, which involved authoring much more crucial company documents. He adopted the selective promotion of positive messages into his writing style, for example, and his willingness to put the company’s brand above all else was continually noted in the upper echelons.

Wolfgang enjoyed the new challenge but found himself getting buried under seemingly endless reporting requirements. His position gave him direct responsibility for the publication and distribution of two very essential reports for the global business: The Strategic Planning Report and the Annual Shareholder Report. The two reports had vastly different purposes:

VW’s Strategic Planning Report was a confidential, internal document designed to lay out the proposed path forward for the fiscal year, balancing the risks and opportunities in the company’s market, setting short-term and long-term goals, and outlining the investments required to achieve those goals in keeping with the company mission statement. Wolfgang understood that if this report was to be of any value for the board’s decision-making process, it needed to include an honest and transparent assessment of both positive opportunities and negative risks. It could not just be one-sided; if VW received poor reviews from its customers or clients, for example, the feedback should be included in the report, ensuring that the reasons behind the dissatisfaction could be addressed in future planning efforts. Because the strategic planning report might include information that could potentially harm the company image in the eyes of its customers or give away trade secrets to its competitors, VW maintained a policy classifying its contents as proprietary and commercial in confidence; with this in mind, Wolfgang dutifully stressed the document’s confidentiality when distributing the document to authorized recipients.

VW’s Annual Shareholder Report, on the other hand, was a much less balanced document, with its publicly accessible contents intended not just for current investors, but as a marketing tool to attract prospective investors. Wolfgang copied some parts of the internal planning report into the shareholder report, but the excerpts were carefully selected to highlight untapped profitability; the final product was packaged much more artistically than the internal documents due to the stark differences in the intended audiences. The contents of the public shareholder report were subject to the discretion of the Board, and some sensitive pieces of information were, of course, deliberately redacted during the editing and review phases.

VW’s 2013 Strategic Planning Report (left) and Annual Shareholder Report (right)

Wolfgang was very well versed in adapting his language between the two reports, but he had to keep reminding himself which one he was working on. Knowing he would face the Board’s scrutiny, he had to be very careful with the wording of the public reports; he read many examples published by other companies to prepare himself for the task. As boring as he found the numerical documentation in the typical shareholder reports that he reviewed, he found some of the wording to be quite amusing. Losses in the previous fiscal year were opportunistically repackaged as investments; layoffs were turned into efficiency measures that were purposely and pro-actively implemented in the form of intentional downsizing directives or redeployed under streamlining strategies or whatever buzzword happened to come along when people finally began to equate downsizing with its real meaning. The reformulation process invoked quite a bit of artistic license and some very creative writing on Wolfgang’s part. He ran across real reports, for example, that changed downsizing into hilariously ridiculous terms like “right-sizing”, “smart-sizing”, and other classic euphemisms.

“I mean, boy, who wouldn’t want that, right?” he said sarcastically to one of his colleagues over lunch one day while they were working through the 2014 report, “Our investors could then say, ‘I’m sure glad I’ve invested in a company that’s clever enough to smart-size!’”

In the end, Wolfgang realized that the shareholder’s report was essentially a piece of propaganda; everybody knew full well it wasn’t intended to present the whole, hard truth but rather a sugar-coated, subjective version of it. The numbers themselves couldn’t lie – or at least they shouldn’t if Wolfgang wanted to avoid indictment – but it was all packaged up in the best possible light to convince existing customers to hold onto their shares of stock, and to convince potential new customers to buy their own shares. Wolfgang didn’t feel like he had anything to hide; after all, the VW group’s total sales topped every other carmaker on the planet, so his charts didn’t require any manipulation at all to paint a positive picture:

Global annual car sales in 1,000 units

Wolfgang knew that there was value in the appearance, and the appearance created value, which gave the company the needed funds to actually meet their own projections in the precarious cycle that makes the capitalistic world go around.

Telling your shareholders how well a company will do is sometimes a self-fulfilling prophecy as additional demand – and shareholder confidence in the projections – helps drive up the share price. Sure, this pressure has led some companies to state exaggerated earnings that put them in a tedious position, but if people think a company is valuable, it will be valuable, since the momentary value lies precisely in the demand that results from the impression of having value. Investing badly needed funds into branding can be a big gamble, but the more people believe in your company, the greater the demand…and up goes the price. Obviously it’s not quite that simple, and – obviously – if you look at Dutch tulips, dot coms, and bitcoin, the charade can only be kept up for so long if there isn’t much substance behind it. But VW? Fahrvergnügen? Das Auto? Those catch phrases were backed by real factories fed by real stainless steel smelted from the real iron ore that keeps the global economy cooking year after year.

Wolfgang used these arguments to justify the selective process of omitting troubling aspects of the business from the public shareholder report and interspersing risks and concerns with an equal dose of bullish positivity in the much more candid, internal strategic planning report. Wolfgang had absolute confidence in the projections that went into both reports year after year – that is, until one day in 2015 when he held a phone interview with Bernhardt Faust, one of VW’s top systems engineers, to discuss risks to the business that might make their way into the strategic planning report.

“Anything else?” Wolfgang asked after running through the standard questions.

“Actually, there is one more thing that you might want to be aware of,” Bernhardt said, “only we can’t discuss it over the phone.”

The hesitation seemed a bit odd to Wolfgang, but he agreed to meet Bernhardt over lunch the next day. With his publication deadline looming, he wanted to get straight to the point.

“So, what do you have for me?” asked Wolfgang before they had even ordered their lunches.

“Government regulators have been snooping around the lab lately,” Bernhardt said, “Apparently there have been some accusations raised that the emissions systems on some of VW’s cars have been deliberately hacked to fool the testing equipment.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Wolfgang, “Who do you think made that up? Who’s out to get us? Mercedes? Ford?”

“Well, it looks like there might actually be something to it,” Bernhardt said.

“No way,” said Wolfgang, “Not under Ferry’s watch!”

“Have a look at this document,” Bernhardt said, pulling a folder out of his briefcase, “They’re going to dig through our records with a subpoena, and this is just one of the reports they’re going to find.”

“OK, I’ll give it a read. But why are you telling me this?” asked Wolfgang, “Shouldn’t you just take it up with your own supervisor?”

“I did,” said Bernhardt, “and he said not to worry about it. His reaction convinced me that he already knew about it.”

“Do you think this goes all the way to the top?” asked Wolfgang.

“I have no idea,” said Bernhardt, “but if it blows up, I thought you would at least want to be aware that it could have drastic consequences for the business.”

They shook hands, and Wolfgang took the document home to read. The shareholder report was about to be released, but he still had a few days to work on the internal planning report. Back at work the next day, he dug further into the documentation and found some internal memos that highlighted the issue. He began documenting the risks to the business in his draft report and called a special meeting with Ferry – making sure the rest of the Board would not be present.

Look, I know the report is due soon,” Wolfgang said when he met Ferry in his private office, “but I wanted to get your advice on whether we should include a very substantial risk in this year’s planning report.”

“What have you got?” asked Ferry, drumming his fingers on his desk pad.

“I think we’re going to have to set aside a large sum of capital for legal battles and get the PR department ready to go into damage control mode – maybe start wording press releases that acknowledge some very serious mistakes.”

“And why’s that?” asked Ferry.

Wolfgang went on to explain the allegations involving the intentional ploy to fool emissions testing equipment. There was no proof yet, but he explained that if the charges were substantiated, it could destroy the company’s reputation. He finished his explanation with a recommendation to at least include the risks in the fiscal year’s planning report.

“Even though it’s a confidential document,” Ferry said, “information this volatile would surely get leaked to the press.”

“So maybe we should do a pre-emptive press release,” suggested Wolfgang, “Without that, we’d be putting each of the report’s recipients – like the regional sales managers – in the position of having to lie about what they know.”

“I think we should leave it out of the report,” Ferry said.

“Why’s that?” asked Wolfgang.

“Because they’ll never be able to prove it,” Ferry said.

“Are you sure?” asked Wolfgang.

“Yes, because even if it were true,” Ferry replied confidently, “you’d have to set up mobile equipment that could essentially take what goes on in the testing centers and replicate it around a moving vehicle on the road.”

Wolfgang suddenly got the distinct impression that Ferry had already thought this one through.

“It’s impossible,” Ferry continued, “It would cost a fortune to set up. I mean, who would ever go to that much effort?”

Wolfgang shrugged his shoulders.

And even if they came up with some supporting data, I’m sure our own scientists could call the results into question,” Ferry said, “You realize we’ve got people on staff who wrote the standards; I’m sure they can come up with a way to get us out of this.”

“But a lot of people buy VWs precisely because of our claims about cleaner cars!” Wolfgang said, “Are you saying that even if the allegations are true, we should keep out mouths shut?”

“Listen,” Ferry said, getting a bit defensive, “diesel vehicles only make up a small fraction of overall car sales.”

Wolfgang hadn’t mentioned that the alleged scandal involved diesel cars. With this slip, Ferry revealed his prior knowledge of the issue. Wolfgang’s head was spinning with the implications, but he let Ferry continue with his argument.

“Our other vehicles do run clean – much cleaner, in fact, than those of our competitors.”

Wolfgang wasn’t sure where Ferry was going with this.

“If we stopped making cars altogether, our customers would turn to other brands, brands that you know full well pollute more than our cars.”

“Perhaps,” said Wolfgang.

“So you see, on the whole, blowing the lid on this issue – and taking out our market share in the process – would actually increase harmful emissions into the atmosphere.”

Wolfgang was thoroughly confused by the argument.

“If you care so much about the environment,” Ferry said, “think about that; are you willing to take that risk?”

“But it’s wrong!” Wolfgang countered, no longer treating it as an open case, “The testing results are fabrications – made up numbers!”

“We’re working to fix the discrepancies with future models. We have the best engineers in the world working on it,” Ferry said, “We’ll get there.”

Wolfgang really wanted to believe that claim, but it seemed like quite a stretch given the order-of-magnitude discrepancies in the testing results.

“Are you willing to put one in seven German jobs at stake for your temporary little hero moment in the meantime?” Ferry asked.

Wolfgang sat back, contemplating his options. He really had no intention of being a whistleblower. “Fine,” he said, throwing his hands up after a minute of silence, “You’re the boss; I just thought you should know that there’s a looming risk to the business that could explode at any moment.”

“Listen, you’ve been working way too hard, and I think you need a break,” Ferry said, “Just get the shareholder report out, and give us what you’ve got so far for the planning report. We’ll take care of the rest.”

“But..”

“We’ll handle it!” Ferry said.

Wolfgang nodded, shook Ferry’s hand, and walked out the door. He went back to his desk and started drafting up an e-mail to Ferry to accompany the draft planning report with the research he had done on the emissions testing. Honestly, he wasn’t sure it would ever see the light of day.

The knot in his stomach since leaving Ferry’s office was growing tighter. Burying the information just didn’t feel right. His mind drew a blank as he tried to word the accompanying text, so he turned to the only other task left on the day’s to-do list: to post the carefully reviewed and sanitized shareholder report online, which, of course, contained no mention of the brewing Dieselgate scandal.

As he navigated his way to the upload portal for the public website, he had to enter his password three different times to get through the secure server’s firewall. He finally got to the editing screen of the public page where the highly anticipated shareholder report already had a placeholder for the public release, timed to coincide with the market’s closing bell for the weekend. He browsed through the folder where the final copy of the shareholder report was saved right next to his draft strategic planning report.

He hovered his mouse over the shareholder report and felt his head spinning. In a surreal daydream, he imagined the catastrophic consequences of selecting the wrong document. But he also imagined how free he would feel blowing the cover on the scandal. If he buried it now, he would have to bury it forever due to his own complicit association with the cover-up. But if he went public with it, maybe he would be completely liberated. Sure, the company would implode, but maybe there was something to the old cliché that the truth would set him free…of his own job, that is.

Just to see how it would feel, he clicked on the wrong document…or perhaps the wrong document was the right document to select. Now one click could have been a mistake, but he knew the system would give him one last chance to change his mind. He eyed the two buttons on his screen: Publish or Cancel.

His next move couldn’t be a mistake. He looked at the button, knowing that a single millimeter of motion – a twitch of his index finger – would change his life forever. He had to take an extrasensory view of himself in the moment, looking at his arm like an appendage that wasn’t even his own.

“Oops,” he said out loud, when he watched his finger left-click on his mouse, sending the confidential document into the ether with an invisible, ever-growing chain reaction of electrons that he could almost see in his mind.

He knew it wouldn’t be long before the scandal was public knowledge. He quickly changed the wording of his e-mail to Ferry into a succinct resignation letter and attached the shareholder report.

“Perhaps you’ll like this sanitized report better,” Wolfgang wrote, “The messy bits we discussed have all been removed.”

With that, Wolfgang quit before they could fire him, taking his personal boxes with him before Ferry could even mobilize security to accompany him on his way out.

He went home for the weekend, turned off his phone, and avoided any media whatsoever, living in blissful ignorance for the time being. On Monday morning, he finally decided to tune in to see the fallout. VW claimed the upload was an accidental error and quickly substituted the correct version of the report on their website. But by that time there had already been enough downloads to shock the market. In the 2 hours after the opening bell on Monday, September 21, 2015, VW lost a record $20 billion in value. It was the biggest one-day drop that any company anywhere on the planet had experienced in many years.

People talk about something dropping off a cliff in a figurative sense, but to Wolfgang, this particular cliff-dive felt awfully literal. On his wall hung a calendar that included a shot of one of the ocean roads that had been used in “Fahrvergnügen” commercials years before:

As he looked at the calendar photo, Wolfgang thought it was uncanny how much the actual stock chart resembled a real cliff. Just for fun, he printed out the stock chart and held it up against his calendar. He had to laugh when he saw the near-perfect fit and what it represented: He had singlehandedly sent his own company crashing over a cliff.

In the end, the short-term consequences weren’t good for anyone, but Wolfgang hoped the long-term lessons learned would make it all worth it. Many of his friends and former colleagues took a huge financial hit, and some blamed him directly for his sedition rather than place the blame on those who had perpetuated the scandal.

It was an excruciatingly painful fiasco for VW, particularly for those in the chain of command who had spent years suppressing the truth. Is it any wonder why people sometimes fear exposing the truth? To this day, the effect has never really subsided. Even years after the scandal, the reputational damage and the toll on diesel sales seem to be permanent fixtures of today’s economy. One thing is certain from public opinion surveys, customer reviews, and market trends: Dieselgate changed the automotive landscape forever.

Wolfgang never set foot in a VW factory or office again after leaking the internal document. Nowadays he still enjoys driving his own Jetta, but to him VWs have become just another car. Das Auto? The car? He used to believe that exclusive claim. But these days as he drives along the freeway and sees other VWs on the road, he realizes that although he has some sort of shared memory, history, or culture with other VW drivers, in Wolfgang’s mind, the VW has taken its proper place as “a” car. Special, perhaps. But better? Car ownership has become simply a matter of preference, and every other make and model on the street seems like an absolutely legitimate, valid choice for each unique, individual driver. To an outsider, that seems like an obvious statement, but to Wolfgang, the late-in-life arrival at that eye-opening realization does feel truly liberating.

In the end, he couldn’t actually say whether he was glad he blew the whistle – whether the trade-off between the economy and the environment that he gambled on even made sense. But it didn’t matter. Once he knew the truth, his complicity in the coverup would not just have put him in the miserable position as the carrier of the secret; he would have been left facing indictments and pointing his fingers at his co-workers trying to deflect the blame. The truth was going to come out one way or another. And this particular piece of truth did end up setting Wolfgang free.

~~~~~~~~~~

So that brings us to the end of Wolfgang’s story. Now this story may sound far-fetched, but as I stated at the beginning:

The problem with this particular “true story” is that if you Google the name “Wolfgang Gaslinger,” you’ll see that he doesn’t actually exist. He wasn’t even a fictional character until today, when I simply made up his name by pulling it out of the air. So how can I claim a true story here? Well, I never claimed it was completely true; I only claimed that it was based on true events. Like I said, it is “based on” a true story. Didn’t see that? Well, that’s not my fault, you should have looked more closely. It was right there, between the lines. OK, so I mixed up font sizes just a bit, but if you actually zoom in on the fine print, you’ll see that there are obviously three lines of text, so I was actually telling the truth in the end:

Don’t go blaming me for your negligence in skipping over that line. It’s completely obvious that there’s some text there, so why didn’t you zoom in on it and figure it out yourself? It’s even hyperlinked to the full-resolution image. If you had done your homework, you would have seen that these were my actual words:

This is
based on
a true story

Sure, you can technically make that claim with pretty much any fictional story ever written; there’s bound to be at least some truth somewhere in the setting. Superhero movies that are set in World War I, World War II, or the Cold War are all based on those true events, after all, so couldn’t we make the same claim about the Avengers being a true story at heart? If so, do I have the additional right to shrink those two extra words into fine print in an effort to sway the readers into believing that Wolfgang actually exists?

[Is it ok that billboards have fine print that can’t possibly be read at highway speeds? Generally those absurd additions to billboards are in purported compliance with some sort of law or regulation. Technically the advertisers have included the text in keeping with the “letter of the law”…never mind that you’d have to actually climb up the billboard’s ladder to read it for yourself. It’s all right there for your information!]

Whatever the answer, Wolfgang’s story is entirely allegorical, despite the presence of the true events and share prices that it is based on. Dieselgate was certainly real. But Wolfgang’s story is an alternate reality, a “choose your own ending” story in which a potential whistleblower decided to actually blow the whistle. Now for six years, the real, internal VW employees who became aware of the real, internal problem – employees like Wolfgang – did nothing to address the scandal. So technically Wolfgang himself might be based on any number of true characters, any one of whom could have taken the risk that Wolfgang took and told the truth. I am simply carrying an alternate choice to its conclusion.

In the end, there was no internal admission until the charges were laid. The cliff in the stock price is now etched into history; I didn’t have to make that up, but I am convinced that the fallout effect of an internal disclosure would have been far less drastic than being caught red-handed by regulators after years of denial, cover-ups, and outright lies.

So why would I bring up a publicly-traded, for-profit company here? Why bore even myself in writing out endless descriptions of company documents? Why talk about business at all when this essay is supposed to be about religion?

Seriously?

Well, the church – THE Church, capitalized like DAS Auto – is technically a corporation. Now I don’t want to go around making accusations about the LDS Church being run for profit…at least not solely for profit. But tithing funds are held largely as investments, subject to the whims of the market; and when the stock market does well, God’s Kingdom on earth reaps the benefits. When the markets crumble, so do God’s assets. Protecting those assets is arguably one of the essential stewardships of church leaders, so it is understandable that the Church has some full-time employees whose primary job description is to make the whole enterprise sustainably profitable and recession-proof; but I would imagine those who spend their time in the clergy, even those at the higher echelons who are technically paid for their service, would probably have fared better in terms of personal profit if they had turned down their church positions and focused on their own careers.

Now everyone is driven by their own motives, which makes it impossible to generalize any presumptions of that nature, but I really don’t think the LDS apostles are in it for their own monetary gain. After all, they never ran for the office in the first place, even if some have tried very hard to be in a position that would allow God to choose them for the next rung in the ladder. In Mormon circles, vocalizing that you want a particular calling is one sure way to avoid that position. And vocalizing your surprise, humility, and the fact that you weren’t seeking the appointment is almost compulsory for the public acceptance of any high office in the church. You might argue that one’s church status in an LDS community can help bolster one’s own business, but if you are driven by the love of money, climbing the Mormon ladder would be one of the dumbest things you could do, because for the lay clergy to sufficiently rise to the ranks where you are finally reimbursed for even a fraction of your expended time and resources, you’d have to climb through many, many years in the red with no guaranteed bailout in the end.

So if it’s not cash flow, what propels the vessel? Believers credit divine direction and spiritual confirmation rather than mammon as the basis for decisions that guide the organization; but if following God’s promptings just happens to result in financial profitability, well then that’s just part of the rainy-day plan rather than the end goal itself.

On an individual basis, Mormons across all ranks are driven by a personal gain of another sort: their own salvation, which is, in turn, contingent on their efforts – if not the results – in helping God to fulfil his own mission for humanity. That mission is tied into the salvation of the masses…which is directly proportional to the value of the organization itself. When the Church suffers reputational damage and faces a corresponding loss of trust, fewer souls come to Christ, and God’s goals for his children are thwarted. Anything that harms the organization’s name – essentially the company brand – defies God’s own “work and glory” which by some LDS scriptural interpretations is tied up in the number of souls who can be granted immortality and eternal life through portals that can only be unlocked with keys held by THE Church. It is thus no surprise that the name of the church is protected at all costs. How else can we explain the immediate suppression of anything that might harm the reputation or image of the church, even when the allegations are absolutely true?

If a Church member allows the reputation of the Church to be tarnished, the fallout becomes their burden to bear. When the publication of a culturally insensitive photo-op got the Church kicked out of Thailand back in the 1980s, for example, the responsible missionaries wore the life-long guilt for countless lost souls who never had the chance to receive the message. Knowing what was at stake, would a Mormon newspaper editor have allowed those photographs to be published? Or would they have been buried in the same manner as the Salamander Letter, the Kinderhook Plates, and post-Manifesto plural marriage records? If I had run across the photographs of missionaries desecrating the sacred icons of their host country at the time, I honestly would have been very tempted to burn them to avoid the public relations disaster that would accompany their distribution. No harm, no foul!

So what does any of this have to do with Dieselgate? Wolfgang – representing a number of true counterparts – found that some company executives had known about the scandal for years but wanted to keep it quiet for fear of the ensuing embarrassment and financial doom. Although the brewing risk was known in the upper tiers, VW’s own salespeople had been offered no advance warning whatsoever. Showroom employees kept right on doing their jobs around the world, legitimately believing they were selling clean cars, and continuing to claim their conviction of the stated emissions values, unwittingly duping their customers out of their car payments right up until the day the share price crashed.

Can you blame a dealer or a entry-level sales rep for not looking into the claims more deeply – not even simply Googling just to confirm that the claims are valid? In VW’s case, the salespeople seem inculpable enough…or am I just trying to justify my two full-time years and many part-time years as a salesman hawking a different product I can no longer stand behind?

If you were selling VWs in 2014, didn’t you have a right to know the real story rather than hearing about it at the same time as the customers you unwittingly duped? And if a lowly VW salesperson did somehow manage to get wind of the issue prior to the public disclosure, would they have been obliged to inform their customers? Knowing that the leaked information would instantly cut the resale value of the vehicle in half – and potentially bankrupt the company to boot – could they justify keeping quiet?

“It’s still a great car,” you might argue, “a few points on a chemical analysis doesn’t compromise the value of the entire vehicle!”

Well, it’s one thing for a salesperson to dupe a customer into buying a sham product; it’s quite another matter when the factory itself has duped its own salespeople into believing the false claims they are propagating and encourages them to keep right on trucking in the face of the misleading information. What made it worse for VW was the news that even long after the deception was discovered internally, they “doggedly denied any wrongdoing” as the Associated Press reported. For years, company officials had, in fact, acknowledged some limited discrepancies but blamed them on technical errors rather than deliberate attempts to deceive regulators.

Do I even need to connect the “technicality” dots to LDS apologetics here, or is the connection obvious?

In VW’s case, the stated goal of helping the environment was secondary at best. The market share in terms of vehicle sales always seems to have been the primary goal – as you might expect from any major automobile manufacturer. If cars that actually minimize environmental damage could generate sales, that would be a bonus. But if cars that help the environment don’t sell, well then the environment becomes absolutely secondary to the primary goal of selling cars – whatever it takes! With that perspective, VW’s officers kept the deception going, letting their own salespeople buy into the lies.

These lies were propagated not just to retain vested investors but to continue courting prospective investors. In the end, of course, it wasn’t just the scandal but also the news of the cover-up itself that scared off new investors. The reputational damage and loss of trust in the brand ensured an ongoing reduction in the company’s value rather than just a one-time shock. The company spent years in damage control mode and ended up having to completely reword its mission statement to avoid the air of hypocrisy.

Although I’m perhaps not quite as passionate about Volkswagens as Wolfgang, I have had an affinity for the brand since childhood. The dream car I have coveted for decades sits under the VW Group’s ownership, and a lot of my best childhood and high school memories are tied up with a range of Volkswagens:

Fueled by these memories, I have to admit that when I first read about the alleged scandal, my first reaction was denial. I had enough faith in the organization that I assumed they couldn’t possibly have just made up the test results. It didn’t take long, though, for my “No way would they do that!” reaction to change to “Holy cow, they made it up!”

In similar fashion, when I first heard rumors about the implementation of the November policy, I said, “They wouldn’t do that!” My reaction was propped up by lifelong memories and by a trust that those at the helm would do the right thing. After the truth was confirmed, I took the broken trust further, eventually coming to the realization that Moroni was a figment of Joseph Smith’s imagination; the impacts of that revelation on my daily life were much more substantial than Dieselgate. My reaction was similar to how I felt about the VW case, but perhaps magnified a few-fold: “Holy shit, he made it up!”

In the end, the verdict for the VW scandal pointed the blame on a hyper-pressurized culture of growth and promises of sustained sales increases that were, frankly, unsustainable. Is that same culture present within the LDS Church? Is there pressure to inflate numbers? Do the documents tend to sugar-coat things? Are the test results manipulated? Well, if I’m relying on my own experience, I’d have to say yes, absolutely!

Just like the selective signals emitted by the cars in this story, as Mormons, we tend to cheat precisely when we’re being tested – which means it’s not a fair test at all. I used to do this to my wife: She would ask a question about some discrepancy in the doctrine or history of the church, and I’d realize my convictions were being put to the test. I’d spew out some canned answer like I did when investigators asked tough questions. In milk-before-meat fashion, I would present the external shareholder report version of the story while keeping the internal strategic report to myself, knowing full well that an ongoing cover-up was part of the standard operating procedures.

Under that system, the regulators and investigators never see the actual street result. Internally, we hide the suicides, the depression, and the anxiety in favor of promoting the external propaganda of forever families. Anything that undermines that message tends to get supressed: Men are that they might have joy, right? Well, the gospel brings joy; and the gospel is perfect. So if you’re not feeling the joy, and you’re feeling less than perfect, there must be something wrong with you. You turn that frown upside down and get with the program! Let’s see those positive emissions results! Well, that whole concept is summed up in a few revealing lines of an LDS primary song:

If you chance to meet a frown,
Do not let it stay.
Quickly turn it upside down
And smile that frown away.

No one likes a frowning face.
Change it for a smile.
Make the world a better place
By smiling all the while.

While we’re drawing comparisons between the Volkswagen Group and the Corporation of the First Presidency, how about this little substitution:

If your diesel’s spewing fumes,
Do not let them know,
Simply change your testing mode,
So they will let you go.

Want to pass emissions tests,
to hit the road today?
Just turn on the override
and problems go away!

Relating it back to Mormonism, my Aunt Kristie, who is a master of musical parodies, coined preferred lyrics for this particular song:

If you chance to meet a frown,
do not turn away.
It probably just means that person
needs some love today.

Being happy’s lots of fun
and smiling feels just fine.
But no one can be smiling
and feel happy all the time.

Mad and sad and frightened
are feelings that are real
and frowning is one way
we have of showing how we feel.

We all need friends who understand
the feelings that we share.
Make the world a better place
by showing that you care.

No car spews out clean exhaust all the time. We’re each a mixed bag. And we’re all full of [crap] sometimes.

In Mormonism, we refer to superlatives that can’t possibly exist. Like Trump’s “perfect” phone calls, claiming that a set of printed words constitutes the “most correct” book on earth doesn’t make the least bit of sense. Likewise, an organization can be neither true nor untrue. It always made me cringe a bit to hear those statements from the inside, but it sounds absolutely absurd from the outside. There is no such thing as a “true” prophet just as there is no such thing as a true politician, musician, mathematician, or pediatrician. Everyone has virtues and vices, faults and flaws. There is no such thing as a “true” church, just as there is no such thing as a true company, nation, fraternity, or any other compilation of individuals that is incorporated into an institution.

Despite dichotomous claims that LDS Church leaders cannot lead their followers astray, the admitted history has shown otherwise. Leaders at the helm have committed acts of deception that are at least on par with Dieselgate. One thing that helped VW begin to recover from the dregs of their scandal was confronting the issues head on, which is where the similarities to the LDS Church end. In moving past the scandal, VW put out ads acknowledging the mistakes, apologizing for them, and making internal changes to prevent the repetition of similar crimes in the future. The admissions weren’t hidden in unlinked essays on the VW website; they were blasted out to the public at half-time during the NBA finals!

In contrast, when the LDS Church has been caught in cover-ups, we get a barrage of justifications, rationalizations, and non-apologetic apologetics. Any hint of wrongdoing is basked in contradictory language explaining why it was the right thing to do at the time even if people think it’s wrong today. I have rarely seen any allusion to endemic, internal, organizational problems. Blame for mistakes is placed either on rogue individuals acting without authority, or on a higher authority altogether. Don’t blame church leaders for polygamy, racial exclusion, or whatever else comes along next. We’re just following God’s mysterious ways!

What if the Volkswagen Group revealed that they were actually operated by some larger conglomeration whose director came up with the Dieselgate scheme as some sort of trial to put the rest of the company on the right path – all as part of a larger strategic plan that exonerates Ferry and his cohorts? Would you buy it? That’s pretty much what happened in the 1930s to Ferry the First. And nobody can blame the company for that little indiscretion, knowing that Hitler faced down Ferry with a flaming sword. He had no choice in the matter, after all, right? Those needing a defense might find some absurdly convenient deflections, but it sure doesn’t fix any of the real problems!

The marketing director behind VW’s apologetic ads was asked why he was still digging up the dirt years rather after the scandal rather than burying it. He explained:

“Without mentioning the past…we would never have the credibility or authenticity to move forward.”

Exactly.

Dieselgate involved one particular piece of technology that was misrepresented by industry for economic purposes, but it is by no means an isolated incident. History has shown that the truth about seatbelts, lead, CFCs, second-hand smoke, climate change, Teflon production, and any number of other other subjects has likewise been suppressed by stakeholders covering a range of respective products. Those with vested interests and much to lose will go to great lengths to retain their market share. Can we add polygamy, the priesthood ban, and the November policy to that list? The stated claims of divine direction obviously cannot be substantiated, but the salesmen accept the official proclamations, even though some of the facts around the matter have been falsified and exaggerated. Let’s do away with the cover-ups. Say it like it is. Admit the mistakes. Own it!

If we can bring this to a close now, here is an open-ended sequel to Wolfgang’s story: He was eventually exonerated as a whistleblower, and in the wake of Ferry’s resignation along with other key board members, his name was no longer spoken for ill. In fact, five years after Wolfgang’s book was published, a new printing was ordered, and Wolfgang was asked if he would be willing to update the book with a new preface. Once again, Wolfgang wanted to tell the whole story, which this time around included an apology for the scandal. He met with Bernhardt Faust, who had been appointed to the board of directors in the meantime, to discuss the contents.

“That’s old news now,” Bernhardt said, “We’ve admitted it, fixed it, and moved on. Can’t we focus the updates on our new mission statement?”

Wolfgang read the new wording aloud: “We serve our customers’ diverse needs with a portfolio of strong brands. We assume responsibility regarding the environment, safety, and social issues. We act with integrity and build on reliability, quality, and passion as the foundation of our work.”

“Is this chapter about Dieselgate useful in fulfilling the mission statement?” Bernhardt asked.

“No, it shows exactly the opposite of what we’re trying to achieve today,” Wolfgang answered.

“So let it go!” Bernhardt said.

Wolfgang headed home that night wondering whether to take the job or walk away from it.

Like Wolfgang, I’ve been asked to present a selective history of an organization. When I expressed my concerns about that approach, I was told to doubt my doubts and keep quiet. I’ve largely complied with that request over the years, venting quietly about my concerns here on my personal computer in an attempt to salvage my own mental health without actually leaking the truth. Until today, these thoughts have only been shared in private. But I do have a WordPress account where I can add online content with the single click of a button. It’s all right here in an encrypted file. Would uploading it change my life? Do I let that index finger twitch? Or do I hit the escape key?

What would Wolfgang do? Well, if you are reading this, then you know full well what I decided to do when facing this dilemma. I am Wolfgang, after all!

~~~~~~~~~~

[Next: Chapter 6 Part 2: Yin and Yang]