[jacquesm]

Germany is not the US.

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.

[x0x0]

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.