Germanys Swap Charges Over Refugees; Bonn Shuts Embassy in Warsaw

East and West Germany exchanged denunciations Tuesday as the flow of East German refugees continued through Hungary and Austria to West Germany and as the Bonn government closed its embassy in Warsaw to the public because of refugees there.

In East Berlin, the Communist regime accused the West German government of organizing the exodus of East Germans and charged that West German diplomats had disguised themselves as charity workers to facilitate the process.

At the same time, Austrian officials in Vienna said that nearly 17,000 East Germans had entered the country since the Hungarian government opened its border Sept. 10.

They said that other East Europeans, mainly Romanians and Czechs, are trying to enter neutral Austria from Hungary. A total of 737 Romanians, 112 Czechs “and a number of Bulgarians and Soviets” had entered Austria illegally in the past month, they added.

In East Berlin, the Communist Party daily paper Neues Deutschland declared in an article headlined “Trade in Humans”: “The West German actions are prepared in military style and are scrupulously executed, as one would expect from a capitalist society. It is an attempt to discredit 40 years of socialist construction by East German citizens.”

The West German Foreign Ministry announced Tuesday that it is closing its Warsaw embassy to the public until further notice, saying the situation had become untenable. About 110 East Germans who are seeking safe passage to the West are in the embassy. A spokesman said Poles seeking visas for West Germany could obtain them at travel agencies.

Meanwhile, East German refugees inside the West German Embassy grounds in Prague, the Czechoslovak capital, said their number had swelled to 500 people, with 300 climbing over the compound’s fence in the past few days.

East German refugees arriving in West Germany said that armed Czech frontier guards were taking identity documents and car keys from those they suspected of trying to reach West Germany by way of Hungary and Austria.

There were reports in the official Hungarian media that nine Hungarian border guards have been accused of charging refugees money to help them flee to the West, the Associated Press reported.

Meanwhile, West Germany’s opposition Social Democratic Party leveled an unusually harsh burst of criticism at the East German regime. The Social Democrats, who have generally taken a sympathetic approach to the Communist regime, recently were accused by the ruling Christian Democrats of being overly soft on East Germany.

On Tuesday the Social Democrats declared that the East German regime was “incapable of understanding the crisis.” The Communists, they said, “must recognize that (their) stubborn position can lead to dangerous outbreaks in the heart of Europe.”