As early as 1918, John Deere placed itself in the American tractor market with the takeover of the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company. John Deere Tractors first appeared in Germany in 1956 when Lanz AG was taken over. Lanz AG had been producing tractors in Mannheim since 1921 and therefore, was the perfect partner for John Deere to enter the German and the European markets respectively. Today John Deer Tractors is the market leader in Germany and worldwide. The John Deere Tractors produced in Mannheim were not only offered on the German market. In the following period they made the Mannheim factory the company's second biggest production plant and from then on also supplied the European market with John Deere Tractors. In addition, the company erected a further two production plants for John Deere Tractors in Germany. Today it is represented in 27 different countries and employs around 47,000 workers. By this point, the American company built tractors, articulated dump trucks and crawler tractors with up to 620 HP.

Currently the smallest John Deere Tractor, the John Deere 5055E, is a tractor in the 5E range. This range includes three tractors which are all fitted with a three-cylinder PowerTech engine. Right up to the biggest and most powerful John Deere Tractor, the John Deere 9620RX with four tape drives, in total eleven different tractor ranges are available. Among these tractor series, some John Deere specialized tractors are also available as well as various performance classes, so that the appropriate John Deere Tractor can be found for every operation site.

In the German registration statistics, John Deere Tractors and Fendt Tractors have been in a head-to-head race for first place for years.Both agricultural machinery manufacturers have the most registrations and each have a market share of around 20%. In 2015, John Deere Tractors achieved, for example, a market share of 19.5 % with a total of 32,220 new registrations. Thereby John Deere achieved second place. 

From Autumn 2016, the new EU emission level V is expected to take effect. This stipulates that a limit on the number of particles is introduced in diesel motors between 19 and 560 kW. But John Deere considers itself well prepared for this, since John Deere engines fitted with diesel particle filters already fulfil the future requirements of the level V. Therefore, John Deere is not unfamiliar with exhaust filtration technology, so fulfilling the emission level V requirements with John Deere Tractors will be no problem.