Brake Light Switch problems of the 2001 Volkswagen GTI

I experienced a brake light switch failure which resulted in my car not meeting safety standards.

Premature brake switch failure: after 41k miles the brake switch started to fail and burned out my brake lights. A collegue saw that I was driving without brake lights and warned me. Volkswagen customer service had no recall in the computer even I know that the beetle has one going on and is using the same part. No injuries, no crashes but I feel that driving without brake lights endangered me.