Wow ... so Executives who were actually responsible for taking this decisions will get away with it and staff will get fired. Always blame low level engineer seems to be the mantra.
I believe, these are further consequences of the budget cut, they are NOT blaming low level engineers for the emission scandal...
A simpler way to put it would be that there is at least one person with no role in those decisions that is losing their job because of the scandal.
The Engineers actually standing in court now are also high-ranking managers. They just also happen to be professional engineers.
There are no people getting fired, just retiring people are not getting replaced.
I am far from the thought that this will be a lesson in humility to you though.
CEO-Speech en coated gloves- they protect from responsibility, and reduce water costs if you got to wash your hands off.