Behind-Scenes Soviet Role in E. German Exodus Told

West Germany hinted strongly today that the Soviet Union had helped to arrange the surprise exodus of more than 6,000 East Germans as a new dispute between the two Germanys left the fate of hundreds of other refugees in the balance.

Government spokesman Hans Klein said Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev had been in constant contact with Chancellor Helmut Kohl since East Germans began taking refuge in West German embassies in Budapest, Prague and Warsaw in July.

Klein declined to give details of the communications between Gorbachev and Kohl, but another senior official indicated that Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze had given his blessing to the deal in talks at the United Nations in New York last week.

“Shevardnadze was helpful,” the official said.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper reported today that Shevardnadze was moved by West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher’s description of the grim conditions in the overcrowded embassy in Prague and persuaded the East Germans to soften their initially hard line.

Leave on Special Trains

Under an unprecedented deal, more than 6,000 East Germans traveled to West Germany Sunday on special trains from Prague and Warsaw that took them through East Germany.

But today East Germany accused Bonn of breaking its word over the deal by allowing hundreds of other refugees into its embassies in Prague and Warsaw and said the West Germans should eject the new arrivals.

Well over 1,000 East Germans took refuge in the West German embassy in Prague today, freely entering the front door.