VW supervisory board seeks to smooth leadership crisis - report

Several key members of the supervisory board including Piech are to meet ahead of VW's annual shareholder meeting on May 5, Handelsblatt newspaper reported, citing sources close to the supervisory board.

Piech, patriarch of the family that founded Volkswagen and a dominant figure at the automaker for more than two decades, triggered the leadership crisis at the Wolfsburg-based firm by criticizing Winterkorn in a magazine article earlier this month.

But Piech's iron grip on the German carmaker has been weakened following a confrontation with senior board members last week that nearly resulted in a push to oust him, sources told Reuters.

(Reporting by Jonathan Gould; editing by Thomas Atkins and Sunil Nair)