-         1938- 1938 Commander 2nd Light Division.

-         1939- 1940 Commander 7th Panzer Division.

-         1940- 1942 Commander 40th panzer corps.

-         1942 Commander the Africa panzer Army.

-         1942 Reserve.

-         1942 Commander Panzerarmee Afrika.

-         Died in action of a heart attack. Alamein October 1942.

"General Stumme, the new Commander of the Panzerarmee had directed an Armoured Corps in Russia and previously in Greece. Von Thoma, who was given the Afrika Korps, also came from the Russian front-so many months after his first negative reconnaissance of the Africa shores ".

At Alamein the attack had opened at 21:40 on the 23rd October 1942 with Gunfire, on the main northerly front, at 22:00, zero hour for the advance . At his headquarters near the coast Stumme could hear the thunder of the guns and  observe the lightning of their flashes amid the darkness, but situation reports were meager , by dawn the fog of war was still impenetrable , so Stumme set out on personal reconnaissance. He died almost immediately. Until next day , when his body was discovered, his fate was obscure, but finally it emerged that while examining the situation to the left of the line ,where the 9th Australian Division was attacking with customary dash, he and his staff officer had come under fire, his companion had been killed, and Stumme ,holding on to his truck as it tried to get away, had collapsed under a heart attack, until Rommel arrived during the evening of 25th November Von Thoma over the Panzerarmee Command".

      ( Ronald  Lewin. The Life and Death of the Afrika  Korps. PP.210-211. Corgi Books 1979 ).