Johann Stever
German officer in the Heer branch of the Wehrmacht during World War II
Johann Joachim Stever (1889 – 1945?) was a German officer in the Heer branch of the Wehrmacht during World War II who also served in the army of Imperial Germany during World War I. During World War II, he commanded the 4th Panzer Division for a period of time in 1940. He later commanded the 336th Infantry Division and was then a military area commander in occupied Russia. Promoted to generalleutnant in 1941, he retired from active duty in 1944. He fell into Soviet custody as they advanced into Germany in 1945 and, having not been seen since, is believed to have died shortly thereafter.
Biography
Stever was born in Berlin in 1889 and volunteered for the Prussian Army in 1908 as a Fahnen-junker (officer cadet). After World War I, he served in the Reichswehr (Imperial Defence) and by 1938, he had risen to the position of chief of staff of the Wehrmacht's XV Motorised Corps. In April 1940, and now a generalmajor he was given command of the 4th Panzer Division and led it through the invasion of the Low Countries the following month. It then moved into France and was involved in the fighting around Dunkirk and then to the west of the country. He was replaced as divisional commander in late July, after the completion of the French Campaign.
In December 1940, Stever was appointed commander of the 336th Infantry Division, which was part of a series of static divisions raised for service in the occupied countries of Western Europe.
The public source identifies “Johann Stever” as german officer in the Heer branch of the Wehrmacht during World War II. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Johann, Stever and German.
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This entry incorporates text from “Johann Stever” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.