Leclerc objected to the use of his troops in the attack on Royan in April 1945. As a result, only part of 2e DB was employed. The division rejoined Seventh Army, crossing the Rhine on 25 April, and joining the pursuit into Bavaria. Leclerc visited Dachau concentration camp after its liberation by the Americans. In an incident that took place 8 May 1945 at Karlstein near Bad Reichenhall in Bavaria, he was presented with a defiant group of captured Frenchmen of the SS "Charlemagne" Division. He asked them why they wore a German uniform, to which one of them replied by asking why Leclerc wore an American one. Leclerc told his men to get rid of them. That was taken as a death sentence. The group of French Waffen-SS men was summarily executed by the RMT without any form of military tribunal procedure, and their bodies left where they fell until an American burial team collected them three days later. On 2 June 1949 the bodies were exhumed and buried in the St. Zeno cemetery in Bad Reichenhall. For his services leading the 2e DB, Leclerc was awarded the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour.