The capitulations at Luneberg and Haar could do nothing, however, for the bulk of the German forces in Army Group Centre, fighting the Soviets in Bohemia and Saxony. On 4 May Dönitz, together with Karl Frank the Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, conceived of a device whereby Army Group Centre might be able to surrender to General George Patton's American forces, who had been entering the Sudetenland areas of former Czechoslovakia from the west, and approaching Pilsen. Dönitz proposed that Frank should dissolve the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and resign in favour of a puppet Czech government, who would then declare Prague an open city and invite the Americans in. General Patton's virulent anti-communist views were well known to the German leadership, who reckoned that with Patton in Prague it would become much easier for Army Group Centre to negotiate surrender terms with him while maintaining their resistance to the Soviets, if possible dragging American and Soviet armies into direct confrontation. Frank had hopes that "we can engineer a disagreement between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union even more serious than that of Poland". The ploy was proposed as being put into effect on 5 May, but was overtaken by the outbreak of the Prague uprising on that date; and over the succeeding three days, far from surrendering Prague as an open city, SS forces launched a savage response to the insurgents, with brutal reprisals against Czech civilians and widespread destruction in central Prague. Orders to fire-bomb the whole of the Old Town were only averted due to lack of fuel for Luftwaffe bombing units. Alerted to the German machinations through intercepted Ultra signals, Eisenhower ordered Patton to stand still in Pilsen in spite of ever more desperate calls for help from the insurgents. Prague was finally relieved by General Konev's forces on 9 May 1945.