That's a good point, and it is likely that if they did not 'play ball' that they might have been thrown out. But in such a situation you could consider becoming a whistle blower. One thing is for sure, the moment you play along with a scheme like that when the chickens come home to roost you won't be able to deny you were involved and thus likely culpable. Some things are not worth any amount of compensation. Going to jail for some company or ending up holding the bag because everybody else pretends they have no idea why you did what you did would really suck.
Just imagine. Some German engineer was pressured into doing this. I guess it only counts when your decisions materially affect your own situation, in all other situations principles are free. Engineers should stick to their oath, and should use their fraternity to block stupid decisions such as these, even if that leads to individual hardship.
After all, what's next? Bridges that collapse? Buildings that you can't trust? Aicraft manufacturers? You have to draw the line somewhere and it is generally recognized that the engineering profession needs to be trusted by the rest of society if society is to continue to function. You can make mistakes as an engineer but you simply can not be caught even accessory to fraud, that's risking the reputation of the profession as a whole.
Sorry, but whistleblowers, at least in the US, get screwed. Playing along or quitting is the smarter play; there's at least a chance you won't be badly hurt.
Examples abound. Do you know who is the only person sent to prison for waterboarding prisoners (and to be clear, torture)? The guy who told the press about it [1]. Hell, just yesterday there was a JPMorgan whistleblower on here who got fucked out of his job; they made sure he had 3 complaints on his record then lied under oath about who wrote the complaints so he can't find a new employer.
The upshot is, at least in the US, only fools report on their employers because there's a very real chance you lose your ability to earn a living. The anti-retaliation laws may be very pretty but appear to have zero teeth.
I wouldn't be surprised if the situation in Germany is similar. I'm not saying engineers should do this sort of stuff, but imagine for a second the costs to telling various governments what they were busy not seeing. So if the price of being honest is you have to quit one of the largest employers in Germany, who is quite possibly the sole employer of what you do where you live, it may well require you and your family to move. At minimum! Not to mention a backchannel negative reference if your boss feels like hurting you.
Yes, whistleblower is not an easy path but there are many ways in which this could have been done without direct danger to the people involved (too many people knew about it to figure out who sent that anonymous package to the top 10 German press outlets). There are also some pretty powerful unions that could have helped with this.
And on the other side is the local government concerned about the largest local employer and the national government concerned about a systemically-important employer and industry.
I think (but hope otherwise!) that you're totally wrong about how the power structures in Germany would have reacted to this very unwelcome news.
We also don't know how many, if any, engineers were asked to be a part of this, refused, and quit or were fired as a result. And possibly pressured in various ways to not say anything about what they were asked to do.
This happened in Germany. Believe me that no executive wants to fight with Bernd Osterloh and there isn't a single engineer who doesn't now how to fight back with the labour union as a backup.
Just imagine. Some German engineer was pressured into doing this. I guess it only counts when your decisions materially affect your own situation, in all other situations principles are free. Engineers should stick to their oath, and should use their fraternity to block stupid decisions such as these, even if that leads to individual hardship.
After all, what's next? Bridges that collapse? Buildings that you can't trust? Aicraft manufacturers? You have to draw the line somewhere and it is generally recognized that the engineering profession needs to be trusted by the rest of society if society is to continue to function. You can make mistakes as an engineer but you simply can not be caught even accessory to fraud, that's risking the reputation of the profession as a whole.