The World : E. German Colonel Defects

An East German lieutenant colonel slipped across the heavily guarded border near Ulzen, West Germany, and asked for asylum, the West German federal intelligence office said. A spokesman confirmed a Bild newspaper report that the defector was Lt. Col. Dietmar Mann, 38, commander of the 3rd Battalion of the 24th Border Regiment. No details of his escape were released. Mann is the highest-ranking East German military officer to flee to West Germany since 1981. In that year, a border commander of the same rank escaped across the frontier, then changed his mind and returned home two days later.