During the 101st's drive into southern Germany, the unit uncovered Kaufering IV, one of 11 camps in the Kaufering complex in the Landsberg region. The Kaufering complex was under the administration of the Dachau concentration camp. At its height, the camp held more than 3,600 prisoners, but in the days before U.S. troops arrived, the SS had evacuated many of the prisoners on a death march south in the direction of Dachau. Hundreds of inmates were too ill or weak to make the trek, so the SS guards set fire to the barracks to prevent their liberation by U.S. troops. When the 12th Armored Division and 101st Airborne Division arrived at Kaufering IV on April 27 and 28, respectively, the soldiers discovered some 500 dead inmates. In the days that followed, the U.S. Army units ordered the local townspeople to bury the dead.

The 101st Airborne Division was recognized as a liberating unit by the U.S. Army's Center of Military History and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1998.