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
3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf fighting alongside the 5th SS Panzer Division "Wiking" and the "Hermann Göring" Panzer Division destroyed the Soviet 3rd Tank Corps. The terrain around Modlin is excellent for armour, and "Totenkopf's" panzers exploited this to their advantage, engaging Soviet tanks from a range where the superiority of the German optics and the 75 mm high-velocity gun gave the Panthers an edge over the T-34s. The efforts of the "Totenkopf", "Wiking" and "Hermann Göring" divisions allowed the Germans to hold the Vistula line and establish Army Group Vistula. In December 1944, the IX SS Mountain Corps (Alpine Corps-Croatia) was encircled in Budapest.