Tributes and words of appreciation have
poured in from across the German automotive industry following the
death of former Volkswagen patriarch Ferdinand Piech.
"Ferdinand Piech made history in carmaking - as a passionate manager,
an engineering genius and as a visionary businessman," said Hans
Dieter Poetsch, president of Volkswagen's supervisory board, on
Tuesday.
Herbert Diess, Volkswagen chief executive, described Piech as brave,
resolute and technically brilliant.
"In particular, Ferdinand Piech brought quality and perfection down
to the smallest detail to building cars, and deeply rooted this in
Volkswagen's DNA," Diess said.
Piech died aged 82 on Monday, after collapsing in a restaurant in the
southern state of Bavaria.
Piech was chief executive of Volkswagen from 1993 until 2002 and was
widely credited with positioning the company to become Europe's
largest carmaker.
"We are mourning with the family of Ferdinand K Piech, the
extraordinary engineer and manager, the strategist and quite simply
the car enthusiast that he was throughout his life," Wolfang Porsche,
head of the supervisory board of Volkswagen's parent company, Porsche
SE, said. Porsche is also Piech's cousin.
In commemoration of his death, Volkswagen plants across the country
have flown their flags at half mast, and Audi plants around the world
followed suit. Audi is a subsidiary of Volkswagen, and Piech was
chair of the company for five years before his move to VW.
"One of the biggest strengths of Ferdinand Piech was that he made the
name Audi his own, and always listened to clients and employees,"
Audi head Bram Schot said.
Piech began his career in 1963 at Porsche, where he worked as an
engineer to push the company forward in motor racing. He later moved
into management at Porsche.
"Piech was a car guy through and
through," said Porsche head Oliver Blume.
Younger brother Hans Michel Piech said Ferdinand shaped the car
industry like no other. "And he was closely connected to the
employees of the Volkswagen company, in good times and in bad."
Martin Winterkorn, who succeeded Piech at VW in 2015 following a
bitter power struggle, lauded Piech's "visionary power and his great
abilities as an engineer."
"Ferdinand Piech was a supporter and companion to me personally for
many years," he said.
Winterkorn resigned six months after becoming VW chair when it
emerged that the company had been cheating on environmental testing
by fitting its diesel engines with a so-called defeat device, in a
scandal that rocked the company and cost it tens of billions of
dollars in fines and legal settlements.
Piech angered members of his family at the height of the emissions
scandal when he claimed he had alerted key VW directors in February
2015 to the affair.
Many politicians also chimed in to commemorate Piech.
Former German chancellor Gehard Schroeder said Piech "shaped the
global automotive industry for several decades."
Former German president Christian Wulff said Piech was a selfless
manager. "During all the ups and downs over the years, I became
convinced that he always followed the interests of the VW company,
and not his own," Wulff told the daily Hannoversche Allgemeine
Zeitung.
Stephan Weil, premier of the state of Lower Saxony, called Piech "one
of the biggest business leaders in Germany's history."
Lower Saxony is where the headquarters of Volkswagen are located. The
company is the economic powerhouse of the state, with thousands of
people in Lower Saxony employed there.
The cities Braunschweig and Wolfsburg, both key locations for VW,
paid their respects to Piech.
"Wolfsburg owes a great deal to Ferdinand Piech," said Klaus Mohr,
city mayor, adding that Piech had saved thousands of people from
unemployment during the company's sales crisis.
In this file photo taken on October 1, 1998, then chairman of German car maker Volkswagen Ferdinand Piech poses next to the Lupo car