From: Jess Minton (pd.minton@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Sat May 07 2005 - 09:17:48 PDT
>GERMANY SURRENDERS!
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><http://www.trumanlibrary.org/ww2/veday.htm>http://www.trumanlibrary.org/ww2/veday.htm
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>Broadcast to the American People Announcing the Surrender of Germany.
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>May 8, 1945.
>
>[Delivered by President Truman from the Radio Room at the White House at 9
>a.m.]
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>This is a solemn but a glorious hour. I only wish that Franklin D.
>Roosevelt had lived to witness this day. General Eisenhower informs me
>that the forces of Germany have surrendered to the United Nations. The
>flags of freedom fly over all Europe.
>
>For this victory, we join in offering our thanks to the Providence which
>has guided and sustained us through the dark days of adversity. Our
>rejoicing is sobered and subdued by a supreme consciousness of the
>terrible price we have paid to rid the world of Hitler and his evil band.
>Let us not forget, my fellow Americans, the sorrow and the heartache,
>which today abide in the homes of so many of our neighbors--neighbors
>whose most priceless possession has been rendered as a sacrifice to redeem
>our liberty.
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>We can repay the debt which we owe to our God, to our dead and to our
>children only by work--by ceaseless devotion to the responsibilities which
>lie ahead of us. If I could give you a single watchword for the coming
>months, that word is--work, work, and more work.
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>We must work to finish the war. Our victory is but half-won. The West is
>free, but the East is still in bondage to the treacherous tyranny of the
>Japanese. When the last Japanese division has surrendered unconditionally,
>then only will our fighting be done.
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>We must seek to bind up the wounds of a suffering world--to build an
>abiding peace, a peace rooted in justice and in law. We can build such a
>peace only by hard, toilsome, painstaking work--by understanding and
>working with our allies in peace as we have in war.
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>The job ahead is no less important, no less urgent, no less difficult than
>the task which now happily is done.
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>I call upon every American to stick to his post until the last battle is
>won. Until that day, let no man abandon his post or slacken his efforts.
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>And now, I want to read to you my formal proclamation of this occasion:
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>"A proclamation--The Allied armies, through sacrifice and devotion and
>with God's help have wrung from Germany a final and unconditional
>surrender. The western world has been freed of the evil forces which for
>five years and longer have imprisoned the bodies and broken the lives of
>millions upon millions of free-born men. They have violated their
>churches, destroyed their homes, corrupted their children, and murdered
>their loved ones. Our Armies of Liberation have restored freedom to these
>suffering peoples, whose spirit and will the oppressors could never enslave.
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>"Much remains to be done. The victory won in the West must now be won in
>the East. The whole world must be cleansed of the evil from which half the
>world has been freed. United, the peace-loving nations have demonstrated
>in the West that their arms are stronger by far than the might of the
>dictators or the tyranny of military cliques that once called us soft and
>weak. The power of our peoples to defend themselves against all enemies
>will be proved in the Pacific war as it has been proved in Europe.
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>"For the triumph of spirit and of arms which we have won, and for its
>promise to the peoples everywhere who join us in the love of freedom, it
>is fitting that we, as a nation, give thanks to Almighty God, who has
>strengthened us and given us the victory.
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>"Now, therefore, I, Harry S. Truman, President of the United States of
>America, do hereby appoint Sunday, May 13, 1945, to be a day of prayer.
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>"I call upon the people of the United States, whatever their faith, to
>unite in offering joyful thanks to God for the victory we have won, and to
>pray that He will support us to the end of our present struggle and guide
>us into the ways of peace.
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>"I also call upon my countrymen to dedicate the day of prayer to the
>memory of those who have given their lives to make possible our victory.
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>"In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of
>the United States of America to be affixed."
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