At the end of the war Cossacks of the division retreated into Austria and surrendered to British troops. They were promised safety by the British but were subsequently forcibly transferred to the USSR. The majority of those, who did not manage to escape, went into the labour camps of the Gulag. The German and Cossack leadership were tried, sentenced to death and executed in Moscow in early 1947. The remaining officers and other ranks who survived the labour camps were released after Stalin's death in 1953.