Would-Be Emigres Jam Offices : Embarrassed Bonn Closes Its Mission in East Berlin

West Germany closed the doors of its diplomatic mission in East Berlin on Tuesday in an effort to deal with about 130 East Germans who have crowded in, hoping to get emigration documents.

The East Germans have refused to leave the five-story building and are sleeping on mattresses on the floor.

The situation has embarrassed the Bonn government and angered East German authorities, who have charged that relations between the two countries could be jeopardized by the mission’s sheltering of East Germans.

East German officials said that allowing East German visitors into the West German offices in East Berlin constitutes “crude interference in the sovereign affairs” of the Communist state.

In Bonn, Rudolf Seiters, an official of the chancellor’s office, said that his government has a duty to offer humanitarian aid to those who seek it. He added, however, that it is not officially encouraging East Germans to emigrate.

“No one is interested in depopulating East Germany,” Seiters said, “but it is quite clear that East Germany must reform if it wants to resolve the problem of the ever-growing number of people wishing to emigrate.”

A parallel to the situation in East Berlin was taking place at West German embassies in Budapest, Warsaw and Prague, where vacationing East Germans have sought advice, shelter and asylum. Many are camped out in the buildings.

West German officials, who said the mission will be closed until further notice, have made it clear to all would-be emigrants that it cannot issue travel documents because the governments of East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia will not recognize them.

They said that if West Germany were to issue West German passports or travel documents, it would be subjecting the East Germans to criminal charges of possessing illegal documents. They are telling the East Germans to go home and apply officially through East German channels.

“We do not expel them from our embassies,” a West German official said. “In a few hours or days, most realize they must leave, since there is no point in remaining inside our buildings.”

The situation in East Germany has been aggravated in recent weeks, diplomats here said, by continuing repression in East Germany while the Soviet Union, Poland and Hungary are taking a more liberal attitude.

Many East Germans have fled to the West through Hungary since the Hungarian government decided in May to remove the wire fences along its border with Austria. Hundreds of East Germans, after obtaining permission to vacation in Hungary, have then slipped across the border into Austria.

The West Germans, for fear of embarrassing Hungary and angering East Germany, have declined to make public the number of East Germans who have come West.

Long Wait for Approval

Some East Germans have been allowed to emigrate, but only after applying officially through their government and waiting for months or years for approval. In the past year, officials here said, the East German government has approved a higher number of applications than in the past.

West German sources say that at least 2,500 East Germans are in jail for trying to escape to the West.

If an East German succeeds in getting to the West, the West Germans will issue him or her a passport and grant citizenship, because Bonn has never legally recognized the division of Germany.

But East Germans generally face weeks in a refugee camp here waiting for work and housing.