In early May 1945, in the closing days of WWII, both Domanov's “Cossachi Stan” and Pannwitz's XV SS Cossack Cavalry Corps retreated into Austria, where they surrendered to the British. Many Cossack accounts collected in the two volume work "The Great Betrayal" by Vyacheslav Naumenko allege that British officers had given them, or their leaders, a guarantee that they would not be forcibly repatriated to the Soviet Union, but there is no hard evidence that such a promise was made. At the end of the month, and in early June 1945, the majority of Cossacks from both groups were transferred to Red Army and SMERSH custody at the Soviet demarcation line in Judenburg, Austria. This episode is known as the Betrayal of the Cossacks, and resulted in sentences of hard labor or execution for the majority of the repatriated Cossacks.