Ferdinand Porsche Nazi Party and allegedly the SS. He was a recipient of the German National Prize for Art and Science, the SS-Ehrenring and the War Merit Cross, and was called the "Great German Engineer" by Nazi officials. Porsche was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1996 and won the Car Engineer of the Century award in 1999. Ferdinand Porsche was born to ethnic German parents in Liberec (), northern Bohemia, part of the Austrian Empire at that time, and today part of the Czech Republic. Ferdinand was his parents' third child. His father, Anton Porsche, was a master
103rd SS Heavy Panzer Battalion four more in August. On 20 October, all ten Tigers were given to the training unit and the 103rd was outfitted with the Tiger II before being ordered to the Eastern Front, as part of the III (Germanic) SS Panzer Corps. On 14 November 1944 the unit was redesignated 503rd Heavy SS Panzer Battalion. It had a total of 39 (instead of the full complement of 45) Tiger IIs and was loaded onto trains on 27 January 1945, and sent to the Eastern Front in the Army Group Vistula sector. By 15 April 1945, the 503rd reported a total of