Icon: enlarge
Ex-manager Schmidt in front of the VW main plant in Wolfsburg: A relatively small wheel in the corporate hierarchy
Photo: Michael Löwa / DER SPIEGEL
On September 24, 2020, Oliver Schmidt leaves the US prison in Milan, Michigan, for his homeland.
The 1.86 meter tall inmate wears a gray jogging suit, handcuffs and ankle cuffs as security forces escort him to the Chicago airport.
Two officers from the Lower Saxony State Criminal Police Office met him there.
Your job: to transfer the former Volkswagen manager to Germany.
"I just wanted to go home," he says today.
Schmidt, 52, has achieved dubious celebrities in the USA.
His arrest photo made the VW manager the face of the diesel affair there in early 2017.
Wikipedia lists him as one of the five most famous inmates of the nearly 90-year-old federal prison.
Schmidt only played a minor role in the diesel scandal.
He had neither commissioned nor built the notorious defeat devices with which VW manipulated the exhaust gas cleaning of hundreds of thousands of US vehicles.
It was a relatively small wheel in Volkswagen's corporate hierarchy.
Read more with Spiegel Plus
More perspectives, more understanding.
Your advantages with SPIEGEL +
Icon: Check
SPIEGEL as a magazine
as an app, e-paper and on the e-reader
Icon: Check
All articles on SPIEGEL.de
Exclusive texts for SPIEGEL + readers
Icon: Check
Try one month for free
Cancel anytime online
A price
only € 19.99 per month
One month for € 0.00
Try now for 0.00 € Buy nowArrow to the right
Already have a digital subscription? Register here
Restore iTunes subscription
SPIEGEL + is processed via your iTunes account and paid for with a purchase confirmation.
24 hours before it expires, the subscription is automatically renewed by one month at the current price of € 19.99.
You can cancel the subscription at any time in the settings of your iTunes account.
In order to use SPIEGEL + outside of this app, you have to link the subscription to a SPIEGEL ID account immediately after purchase.
With the purchase you accept our general terms and conditions and privacy policy.