17 E. Germans Drop Bid for Asylum at Embassy

Seventeen of 60 East Germans attempting to flee to the West through Prague gave up Wednesday and left the West German Embassy there for home, West German officials said here.

It was the largest number of asylum seekers to withdraw from the embassy since last month, when negotiations on their future collapsed.

West German Foreign Ministry officials also indicated that at least some of the 43 people still in the embassy are expected to abandon their effort in the next few days.

“I believe this process (of refugees leaving the embassy) will continue,” said West German government spokesman Juergen Sudhoff.

Almost three months ago, the first of 160 East German asylum-seekers entered the embassy in the Czechoslovak capital in the hope of emigrating to the West. Forty of them staged a two-week hunger strike last month in a vain attempt to break the diplomatic deadlock that has blocked their emigration.

Path Is Closing

A number of East Germans, including the niece of East German Premier Willi Stoph, made their way to the West last year via West German diplomatic missions, but this path now seems to be closing.

East German authorities, apparently fearful that the growing stream of asylum-seekers could turn into a flood if not stopped, have refused to reopen negotiations over exit permits for the refugees.

West Germany automatically grants citizenship to any East German emigre. However, the refugees need permission from East Germany to leave Czechoslovakia because they entered that country with East German passports.

After a Dec. 14 visit to Prague, Bonn’s state secretary for inner-German affairs, Ludwig Rehlinger, said that negotiations for the refugees’ free passage have collapsed and that their only alternative was to return to East Germany and formally request exit permits.

Rehlinger noted that East Germany granted about 40,000 such permits in 1984, the greatest number in any one year since the Berlin Wall was built 23 years ago. Bonn estimates that as many as 400,000 requests for exit permits are pending.

That message was repeated Dec. 20 when, in the course of a visit to Prague, West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher met for an hour with the asylum-seekers and informed them that diplomatic efforts to win their freedom had failed.

“He told them their only chance was to first return to East Germany,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

In talks between representatives of the two Germanys, East German authorities have promised not to arrest any of those who return home and to allow them to apply for exit permits. West German officials say they have seen no indication that this pledge has been violated.