VW CEO Martin Winterkorn announced his resignation today as part of an effort to be transparent.

Tall, gruff and stern, Martin Winterkorn was precisely the sort of executive that Volkswagen AG favored, first and foremost an engineer. In this case, one who seemed readily capable of understanding even the most arcane technical details of every car within the vast VW empire of more than a dozen brands.

As the automaker’s one-time head of engineering, that may, ironically, have been a key factor that forced his resignation on Wednesday, less than a week after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency accused VW of cheating on diesel emissions testing. Few who know Winterkorn, or the VW way of doing business, could imagine that the 68-year-old executive wasn’t at least peripherally aware of problems.

While not directly linked, Winterkorn stepped down ahead of this week’s VWAG board meeting, stating that, “As CEO I accept responsibility for the irregularities that have been found in diesel engines and have therefore requested the Supervisory Board to agree on terminating my function as CEO of the Volkswagen Group.

“I am doing this,” he added, “in the interests of the company even though I am not aware of any wrong doing on my part.”

VW bet big on its clean diesel models, like the Jetta. Now it's recalling nearly 500,000 vehicles in the U.S.

Whether Winterkorn really didn’t know about VW’s efforts to secretly cheat on diesel emissions tests or not is likely to be one of the central issues in a variety of probes set to get underway around the world. Not only the EPA, but the U.S. Justice Department, are investigating. So are authorities in Germany, and even in South Korea.

While Michael Jackson, CEO of AutoNation, America’s largest dealer network, said it is “too early” to point fingers, he told TheDetroitBureau.com that he believes the corruption at VW is “systemic,” adding that it is impossible to believe that the scandal is the result of just a few “bad applies.”

The VW board is quickly expected to appoint a successor, but its executive committee also says it is “expecting further personnel consequences in the next days.” The company has already launched its own investigation into the scandal which was triggered by the announcement of a recall of 482,000 vehicles last Friday.

Almost by accident, federal authorities had learned that the automaker had installed sophisticated software – dubbed a “defeat device” – designed to detect when one of VW’s four-cylinder diesel models was undergoing emissions tests. In such a case, the car’s full pollution control technology would be activated. Otherwise, the controls would be scaled back, improving performance and fuel economy but allowing a vehicle to emit up to 40 times the maximum allowable emissions.

While the U.S. recall involves less than a half-million vehicles, Winterkorn earlier this week disclosed that about 11 million sold worldwide contain the suspect software. Apparently, it is now active in many markets because they do not have the stiff restrictions on diesel emissions in place in the U.S.

“Volkswagen needs a fresh start,” declared Winterkorn in his letter. “I am clearing the way for this fresh start with my resignation.”

Diesel-powered Beetles from 2009-2015 are part of the massive recall that also includes Jettas and Golfs, as well as Audi A3s.

(VW had previous run-in with “defeat” device. For more, Click Here.)

But some fear what his departure, on top of the scandal’s repercussions, might mean. The financial cost, for one thing, is expected to be enormous. VW has already set aside $7.3 billion to cover the cost of updating or replacing the vehicles covered by the U.S. recall and related expenses. But it faces a potential of $18 billion in fines from the EPA alone. The Justice Department could also levy penalties, as it has done against General Motors and Toyota over the last 18 months.

There could be additional penalties abroad. And at least three class action suits have been filed in the U.S. so far. Meanwhile, there is also the possibility of criminal prosecution of individuals who might be blamed for actively trying to defraud regulators and consumers.

The scandal and resignation, meanwhile, are only likely to shake things up at a time when VW expected to be celebrating. Under Winterkorn, the German maker had aggressively sought to expand its global presence. And though he originally expected to reach the goal by 2018, it ended the first half of this year as the world’s best-selling automaker.

(Click Here to see why VW is setting aside $7.3 billion.)

The VW board’s executive committee said in a statement that the maker’s recent success “is inextricably linked to his name,” crediting Winterkorn “for towering contributions in the past decades and for his willingness to take responsibility in this critical phase for the company.”

There is an almost Shakespearean irony to Winterkorn’s downfall. His rise was largely fostered by long-time VW boss and personal mentor Ferdinand Piech, a grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, the German automotive genius who designed the first “people’s car,” or Volkswagen, for Adolph Hitler. Winterkorn pursued many of the same basic strategies, including adding an array of brands to the corporate arsenal, such as Porsche.

But Winterkorn’s fate came into doubt when the two men had a falling out. As the seemingly all-powerful VWAG chairman, Piech clearly assumed he could push his protégé aside. But Winterkorn proved surprisingly adept at his own political machinations and was able to leave Piech without support, forcing his resignation earlier this year.

(To see more about the U.S. Justice Dept.’s probe into VW’s cheating scandal, Click Here.)

But this week, as the diesel cheating scandal unfolded, it was Winterkorn who found his support vanishing like a puff of smoke.