"Peoples of Yugoslavia!

Soldiers, non-commissioned officers and officers! Workers, peasants, and citizens!

Today, May 9th, exactly forty-nine months and three days after the fascist attack on Yugoslavia, the greatest aggressive power in Europe, Germany, capitulated. On May 8th, at 23,01 hours, the German High Command signed the act of capitulation in Berlin.

Forty-nine months of superhuman exertion and shedding of blood by our peoples have ended with the complete victory of our peoples in concert with the United Nations, first and foremost with the Soviet Union, Britain and America. The once terrible and seemingly invincible power is smashed. The just cause of the United Nations has triumphed over the destructive forces which tried to impose the so-called new order upon mankind, the order of slavery and suffering. This, the most terrible, war in the history of mankind has cost Europe tens of millions of human victims. German fascism in its frenzy, Italian fascism, and their bloody henchmen, who appeared in all European countries, exterminated peaceful civilians, exterminated all those who refused to come to terms with Hitler's "new order" in Europe. Hundred of camps of the Jasenovac and Majdanek type, camps of horror and death, will remain for all time as a ghastly reminder to all nations that never again must they allow such a tragedy to happen, that they must do everything they can to see that the author of the tragedy, fascism, is destroyed at the root.

Soldiers, NCOs, and officers of the Yugoslav Army, Partisans — men and women!

Your heroism and self-sacrifice since the beginning of the war in 1941 until today, under the most appalling conditions, in battle against the incomparably superior forces of the enemy, were an example to all the enslaved peoples of Europe. Fired with determination to defend your homeland to your last drop of blood, inspired with deep faith in the victory of your just cause, from 1941 onward you delivered fierce and merciless blows against the common enemy of the United Nations. You have discharged your debt to your country with honour. Your immortal deeds will live forever in the hearts of our peoples and their future generations. The arena of the glorious battles of the Sutjeska, of Zelengora, Kozara, and the Neretva, etc, will remain eternal monuments to your heroism and that of your fallen comrades. They will inspire future generations of our peoples and will teach them how to love their country and how to die for it. They will be monuments of our national pride in the struggle for freedom and independence."
Josip Broz Tito