Of course, the change at the top of DWS is initially an issue for the listed company DWS.

The resigned CEO Asoka Wöhrmann tried again at the general meeting to regain control of the news situation when he reported on the personal attacks that prompted him to resign.

However, Wöhrmann will have to admit that some of the facts of the past few months seem bizarre.

One may ask why someone with an attractive executive salary needs a middleman to buy a new car.

It's not forbidden, it's strange.

In addition, a CEO may not need to know every security policy of his company.

However, one can expect that in times of hacker attacks and digital security gaps, the boss will find out whether the use of private communication channels for official information is an adequate means.

So far so bad.

Personal misjudgments

Irrespective of these rather personal misjudgments, if they are correct, another accusation weighs heavier: greenwashing.

Could it be that DWS presented its systems as "greener" than they actually are?

The presumption of innocence applies, as the DWS Supervisory Board Chairman and Deutsche Bank Deputy CEO Karl von Rohr rightly pointed out at the Annual General Meeting.

In addition to the German financial regulator Bafin, the Federal Criminal Police Office and the public prosecutor's office, the American financial regulator SEC has also taken on the allegations.

It is still unclear on what basis they started their investigation.

There are at least doubts about the fact that they are completely out of thin air.

Greenwashing is not a trivial offense.

The global economy is undergoing a gigantic transformation.

This costs billions.

The reason for this lies not in a change of heart by corporate leaders who want to save the world, but in climate change.

Failure to limit global warming will have dramatic consequences for the livelihoods of humans, animals and plants.

Conversely, this also means that if the green transformation is cheated, nothing is gained in terms of climate protection.

Greenwashing concerns everyone.

For this reason, too, it is of immense importance that those who have something to say in companies resolutely prevent any attempt at whitewashing.

The jolt must go through the entire group.

The management level of a company must make announcements that allow nothing other than a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to greenwashing.

DWS is a return generator

Is the Deutsche Bank around the CEO Christian Sewing and his board colleague Karl von Rohr so ​​consistent with such an announcement to forego customers, products and thus business?

How difficult is it for Deutsche Bank, which holds around 80 percent of the DWS shares, to make drastic specifications for a very popular and, above all, very successful DWS CEO?

And how much did Wöhrmann want to prove to his superiors how lucrative the investment business can be in terms of green sustainability?

It is the management culture of "higher, further, faster" that made the emissions scandal at VW, the bribery affair at Siemens or the Libor interest tricks at Deutsche Bank possible in the first place.

It's not about the personal enrichment of individuals, but about the goal of satisfying superiors, no matter what the cost - covered by colleagues who don't dare to disturb the party.

Deutsche Bank was in the process of freeing itself from the fraud morass of the financial crisis years.

The development of business in recent months proved that the bank, which had fallen, was right.

The earthquake in DWS comes at a bad time for the bank.

If Deutsche Bank is lucky, the greenwashing allegations at DWS will not turn out to be dramatic, and may ultimately only be the result of lax standards and marketing experts that are clearly too creative.

But it would be better if the bank took the earthquake for its own culture seriously and recognized that cultural change had not progressed much further than the snappy advertising slogan “Positive Impact”, a positive influence on the world, would have us believe.

"We understand" would have more value.