Its home station was initially at Heilbronn and later at Karlsruhe, both in Wehrkreis V, located in the Baden-Württemberg region of Germany.

Roughly one-third of the initial strength of the unit was transferred from the 35th Infantry Division,[3] which had participated in the invasion of France and the Low Countries earlier that year, including fighting in Belgium and around Dunkirk.

[4] The principal fighting units of the four light infantry divisions raised during the 12th "wave" of recruitment for the German Army – one of which was the 101st Light Infantry Division[5] – were two infantry regiments of three battalions each, an artillery regiment consisting of one motorised battery of 15 cm sFH 18 heavy field howitzers and three battalions of 10.5 cm leFH 18 light howitzers, and a reconnaissance battalion consisting of a bicycle company and a horse-mounted cavalry company.

[5] The division joined General der Infanterie Hans-Wolfgang Reinhard's LI Army Corps once established.

[12] The division was committed to the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, as part of Army Group South.

[3] In early January 1942, the division was transferred to LII Army Corps,[16] with which it had begun Operation Barbarossa.

[3] The division was evacuated across the Kerch Strait and transported through Crimea to the lower Dnieper River in the latter part of 1943, where it fought at Nikolajew and Vinniza.

The division was praised for its conduct during the withdrawal across northern Ukraine, it fought in the Carpathians, and was then withdrawn to the German-aligned Slovak Republic in late 1944.

Reduced to kampfgruppe strength by the end of the war, it managed to surrender to US forces in the German-annexed Sudetenland.