They wanted to come to the help of the Prague uprising

František Wiendl got actively involved in the May uprising in 1945. With other resistance fighters, he disarmed the German garrison on the hill “Hůrka” before the arrival of the U.S. Army to Klatovy. After the liberation of Klatovy, the enthusiastic revolutionaries wanted to go to Prague and assist its liberation. “We had assembled in the square, we had trucks, we climbed up on their platforms. We filled the trucks, we had weapons - rifles and panzerfausts that we had taken from the Germans,” he recalled. However, the American soldiers wouldn’t let the expedition go to Prague: “We were angry at them. We said: 'why don’t you let us go?’ But they said that they were the army and that they had already arranged everything.” The Americans reasoned that because they were trying to restore peace and order in the country, uncontrolled armed groups of civilians moving around wouldn’t stabilize the situation. Another reason for not letting the revolutionaries go to Prague was the so-called ‘demarcation line,’ to which the Allies had agreed at the Yalta conference in February 1945. This line determined which territory was to be liberated by the U.S. army and which by the Red Army. Originally, it was only meant to prevent the accidental clash of allied troops, but later it also acquired political significance. The territory liberated by the Soviets became part of their sphere of influence. Prague was on the Soviet side of the demarcation line and thus the American command ordered its soldiers to stand still. The Prague uprising therefore didn’t receive any help by the Americans and Prague was only liberated by the Red Army on 9 May, three days later.