Klaus Kleinfeld, the embattled CEO of Siemens, announced on Wednesday that he will step down   at the end of his contract in September. The company has been beset by a series of corruption scandals in recent months, and only last week, the chairman of the supervisory board, Heinrich von Pierer, had been forced to resign.

In the end, Kleinfeld failed to cling on to his position after being undermined by members of the company's supervisory board. The board had hesitated in extending his contract and there had also been a number of media reports earlier in the week that the search was already on for his successor. Kleinfeld saw little choice but to give up after being at the helm for only two years.

"In times like these, the company needs clarity about its leadership, I have therefore decided not to make myself available for an extension of my contract," Kleinfeld said in a statement. "The company must have complete freedom of action."

Kleinfeld had won few friends with his abrasive management style. Soon after taking over in 2005 he announced sweeping cuts and a radical restructuring of the company, including the sell-off of the company's mobile phone unit to the Taiwanese company BenQ. When that unit went into bankruptcy and was closed down, thousands of jobs were lost in Germany and the media began to turn against the Siemens boss. Meanwhile, the ongoing corruption scandals  involving allegations that some employees had used company funds for bribes to secure deals abroad had also tarnished the company's image.

German commentators on Thursday are critical of the supervisory board's actions and concerned about the future of the company.

The financial daily Handelsblatt writes:

"The resignation of Klaus Kleinfeld is not the solution to the problem. The move is much more likely to push the huge company even deeper into chaos."

"Siemens finds itself in the midst not only of a radical restructuring, but also in a serious corruption scandal, that is far from over. Without a role model or a leader, this will be a crucial test for the highly complex company. "

"(Boardmembers Ackermann and Cromme) didn’t do their homework. A boardroom doesn’t dupe ones own CEO without having an ace up the sleeve. It's always easier to fire than to hire."

The Financial Times Deutschland writes:

"There is an authority vacuum at the top of Siemens, that no company can afford at a time of tough competition and fast-moving markets, without suffering damage."

"In the worst manner of the old Germany Inc., it was obviously more important (to the board) to assert themselves in a power struggle with Kleinfeld, than to stabilize a company plagued with scandals."

"The supervisory board is now under enormous pressure to quickly find new personnel from outside, who can familiarize themselves with the company at lightning speed. It is as if, during open heart surgery, the cuts have already been made, although the pacemaker can only be delivered in a few weeks at the earliest. Unprofessional would be putting it mildly."

The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

"Kleinfeld had no choice ... and announced his resignation. Anything other than an unconditional declaration of trust for Kleinfeld would have entailed an unacceptable undermining of his position."

"The supervisory board didn’t care about what the shareholders thought … and acted unprofessionally before the decisive meeting. The news of the search for a successor should never have been made public. Now Siemens is in shock."

The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

"The media pressure that the participants used in the struggle for Germany's biggest company was at least as big as the internal pressure."

"What Siemens has undergone in the past few months is unworthy of a traditional German company. First of all a corruption scandal is made public, unlike any in German industrial history. Then within one week the company's chairman of the supervisory board and CEO are undermined and attacked -- also a case without precedent."

The left-leaning Die Tageszeitung writes:

"Kleinfeld had to go because the image of the company was in tatters. This is obviously a change in the world of big business: As their products are all interchangeable, their image has become the true brand that has to be protected. This makes the companies morally vulnerable. Corporate ethics become a commodity."