Ferdinand Piëch Ferdinand Piëch Ferdinand Karl Piëch (born 17 April 1937) is an Austrian business magnate, engineer and executive who was the chairman of the executive board ("Vorstandsvorsitzender") of Volkswagen Group in 1993-2002 and the chairman of the supervisory board ("Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender") of Volkswagen Group in 2002-2015. A grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, Piëch started his career at Porsche, before leaving for Audi after an agreement that no member of the Porsche or Piëch families should be involved in the day-to-day operations of the Porsche company. Piëch eventually became the head of Audi, where he is credited with evolving and growing Audi into a
Panzer ace by the Waffen-SS as part of its contributions to Nazi Germany's propaganda campaigns. In most German Army ("Heer") units, tank crews and commanders generally received awards for mission performance rather than tank kills. German highly decorated tank commanders were most often soldiers who served in units equipped with Tiger I or Tiger II tanks between mid-1943 and mid-1944. The Allies did not have any tanks capable of easily defeating the Tigers during this period. Few soldiers who operated Panther tanks at this time received the same high decorations, as these tanks were more vulnerable to Allied tanks and less mechanically