Dr. Kurt Lotz (18 September 1912 – 9 March 2005) was the second post-war Chief executive officer (CEO) of the Volkswagen automobile company in Germany.
He made it VW's priority to wean itself off production of its exceedingly popular Beetle when that model began to look dated in comparison to newer small cars in the North American and European markets.
In addition to that, a serious recession in West Germany the previous year, coupled with serious competition at home from Opel and from Ford's newly merged British and German operations, weakened the Beetle's dominance.
[2] The struggle to maintain management control of the business left him with insufficient time to drive through resolution of the increasingly urgent issues involving product policy:[2] he resigned as chairman on 13 September 1971,[3] to be succeeded by Rudolf Leiding.
[5] When Lotz died in 2005, Ferdinand Piech, chairman of VW from 1993 to 2002, eulogized him as "a strong entrepreneurial personality" who "set his mind thoroughly on steering Volkswagen into the future."