Volkswagen chairman Hans Dieter Poetsch bore the brunt of investor dissatisfaction over the carmaker’s handling of the emissions cheating scandal during a raucous shareholder meeting, with some even trying to remove him as host of the gathering.

Volkswagen shareholder Lower Saxony wanted to withhold its backing for the carmaker’s top management at a supervisory board meeting but relented to avoid further damaging the firm, a source close to the German federal state said.

Resignation comes a day after asking the staff and public for trust

Martin Winterkorn’s days as head of Volkswagen appeared numbered yesterday after the German car maker said a scandal over falsified vehicle emission tests in the US could affect 11m of its cars worldwide.

Volkswagen lost almost a quarter of its market value after it admitted to cheating on US air pollution tests for years, putting pressure on chief executive Martin Winterkorn to fix the damaged reputation of the world’s biggest car maker.