Order of Victory
At the end of the war, King Michael was awarded the highest degree (Chief Commander) of the American Legion of Merit by U.S. President Harry S. Truman. He was also decorated with the Soviet Order of Victory by Joseph Stalin "for the courageous act of the radical change in Romania's politics towards a break-up from Hitler's Germany and an alliance with the United Nations, at the moment when there was no clear sign yet of Germany's defeat", according to the official description of the decoration. With the death of Michał Rola-Żymierski in 1989, Michael became the sole surviving recipient of the Order of Victory.