E. Germany Expels 4 Activists to Calm Protests

East Germany expelled four prominent dissidents to West Germany on Tuesday in a move apparently aimed at calming tempers among young East Berliners demonstrating for reform.

At the same time, Wolfgang Vogel, an East Berlin lawyer, said he thinks that a score of demonstrators arrested over the last two weeks “will be released this week and that they will be able to emigrate if they desire to do so.”

More than 200 dissidents were arrested in East Berlin on Jan. 17, when they tried to join an official parade headed by East German leader Erich Honecker commemorating Communist revolutionaries Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. Twenty of them are still in jail facing possible treason charges. More than 50 of those already freed have been allowed to go to the West.

Support meetings have since been held in Protestant churches, culminating Monday night in a service attended by 2,000 people.

Observers in West Germany said they fear that continuing demonstrations could bring a crackdown by the East German authorities, who have not publicly subscribed to the reforms advocated by Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

The four released Tuesday were songwriter Stephan Krawczyk; his actress wife, Freya Klier; Bert Schlepel, who had been sentenced to six months in prison for taking part in an unlawful assembly, and Ines Czygullon. All four crossed into the West.

Official West German reaction to the jailing of the dissidents has been muted. Dorothee Wilms, minister for inner-German affairs, said the aim is not public condemnation but the release of the people who have been arrested.

The West German government has urged the East Germans to respect human rights, but it has refrained from denouncing the Communist regime out of fear that to do so would harden its stance.

Analysts said that Honecker, the East German leader, appears to be trying to fend off Gorbachev’s reform policies, which he feels are not needed in East Germany and threaten to undermine his regime.