Wolfsburg sacked manager Dieter Hecking on Monday following a poor start to the Bundesliga season.
Under Hecking, Wolfsburg earned just one win from their first seven matches and are in 14th place, two points above the relegation zone.
The final blow came with Sunday's 1-0 defeat at home to RB Leipzig, after which Hecking failed to receive any backing from director Klaus Allofs.
Es war eine schöne Zeit mit dir, Dieter. Danke für alles! ➡ https://t.co/tqpb8Kcn5f pic.twitter.com/RUeMVCmkhI
- VfL Wolfsburg (@VfL_Wolfsburg) October 17, 2016
Valerien Ismael, the coach of Wolfsburg's under-23 side, will take over as interim manager of a club that began the season with an overhauled squad and the ambition of qualifying for Europe.
"Despite great matches in the Champions League, we failed to qualify for an international competition last season," Allofs said in a statement. "And the reshuffle of the squad has not produced the results we were hoping for.
"After the latest disappointing performances, we decided to give the team a new impulse by changing the coach."
Hecking said on the club website he was "disappointed" but accepted his side's early-season form had been well below par.
"I would have liked to continue working with the team and get them back to winning ways, but I respect the decision of the club," Hecking said.
Hecking became Wolfsburg's coach shortly before Christmas in 2012. In 2015, Wolfsburg won the DFB Pokal and finished runners-up to Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga, notching a 4-1 win over the champions.
The 52-year-old is the third Bundesliga coach to lose his job this season, after Werder Bremen's Viktor Skripnik and Hamburg's Bruno Labbadia.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.