The 8th Armored Division landed in France in January 1945 and advanced rapidly to the Alsace region by the end of the month. From here, the "Iron Snake," or "Thundering Herd," division was deployed to the Netherlands in late February or early March 1945. In late March, the 8th crossed the Rhine River and moved into the industrial Ruhr region, where it took part in heavy fighting. By war's end, the division had advanced to the Harz Mountains.

As it moved into central Germany, the 8th liberated Halberstadt-Zwieberge, a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp, between April 12 and 17, 1945. The area around the city of Halberstadt housed a number of Buchenwald subcamps that had been established in 1944 to provide labor for the German war effort, including Halberstadt-Zwieberge I and Halberstadt-Zwieberge II. More than 5,000 inmates were incarcerated in these two subcamps, where they were forced to hollow out massive tunnels and build underground factories for Junkers Aircraft of Aircraft Motors Construction Company, which produced military aircraft.