WOLFSBURG – German Chancellor Angela Merkel asserted that the Volkswagen emission debacle, including years of cover-up, was “no conspiracy.”

Merkel stated: “Already there are crazy Volkswagen conspiracy theorists on the Internet who believe that two or more persons must have planned this emissions strategy. Instead, we are quite sure it was just one person, some lone nut. And we will discover the one person who is responsible, if we possibly can.”

Former Volkswagen CEO Martin Waldman agreed: “One person and one person only was responsible for the production of millions of fraudulently certified automobiles with state-of-the-art emissions cheating software.”

“It was probably just some lone nut. Of course it’s possible that this lone nut has already died or left the company. Maybe he or she already left Volkswagen to work for a competitor and is already falsifying emissions standards at that company single-handedly. Who knows?”

“It is simply not the case that low-level bureaucratic decisions like this reach the executive level, or were planned at our secret strategy sessions at fabulous resorts, such as Biarritz, Davos, or Gstaad.”

“One lone nut can make a difference. One bad apple can spoil the whole bunch. I certainly hope that Volkswagen can find him. Or her,” concluded Waldman.