East Germans Are Warned of China-Style Crackdown

On the eve of Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s visit to East Germany, the Communist regime has warned that a Chinese-style crackdown could occur here if demonstrations erupt during the 40th anniversary of the Communist state this weekend, a prominent reform figure reported Thursday.

Werner Kratschell, a lay leader of the Protestant Church in East Germany, said a high-ranking government official has used the Chinese analogy in warning against trouble, and Kratschell added, “I feel there could be military steps against us.”

He spoke less than a day after strong police action in the East German city of Dresden. In what was described as the nation’s first riot in decades, police fought Wednesday night with clubs and water cannon to hold back up to 10,000 people besieging the Dresden railway station, according to witnesses.

The fighting was the latest demonstration related to the defection of thousands of East Germans to West Germany through neighboring Communist Bloc countries such as Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

Many in the Dresden throng apparently sought to hitch a ride to the West aboard a train carrying their countrymen from Prague, the Czechoslovak capital, to West Germany. Others chanted “Gorby! Gorby!” to express support for Gorbachev’s reforms, which have not been embraced by the hard-line East German leadership.

Dozens of the demonstrators were injured and arrested, and one man’s legs were severed by a moving train, according to West German radio and television broadcasts.

In another development, about 7,600 jubilant East Germans, riding what have been dubbed “freedom trains,” arrived in West Germany from Bonn’s embassy in Prague, and the Polish Foreign Ministry said 600 more would follow soon from the Warsaw mission.

East Berlin has scheduled the special trains through its territory so that it could formally expel the emigrants and thus technically avoid the stigma of mass defections. But refugees said East German security police sealed off the rail corridor so others could not hop aboard while the trains were en route.

It was the second such exodus within a week that East Germany has had to organize from West Germany’s Prague and Warsaw embassies, where thousands of East Germans took refuge as their first step toward the West.

At least 45,000 East Germans have fled to the West since Hungary opened its border with Austria Sept. 11, more than 31,000 crossing through Hungary.

But most of the others have flooded to the West German mission in Czechoslovakia--the last country East Germans could visit without a visa until Tuesday, when curbs were imposed on travel there too.

Hoping to avert violence in East Berlin this weekend, church leader Kratschell and Baeezrbel Bohley, the artist who is a founder of the three-week-old reform group called New Forum, called on followers to avoid violence in any protest connected with the anniversary celebration, at which Gorbachev will be the guest of honor.

“We are not against demonstrations as long as they are free of violence,” Bohley said in an interview in her high-ceilinged, book-filled East Berlin apartment. “At the moment, however, it wouldn’t be sensible to demonstrate.”

The somber East German mood, touched off by the refugee crisis, has been darkened by the police crackdown in Dresden, arrests during reform marches in Leipzig and uncertainty about the Gorbachev visit here today and Saturday.

Gorbachev is enormously popular in East Germany. For many, he is the symbol of the spirit of the political and economic reform sweeping the Soviet Union, Poland and Hungary--the same reform being rejected by Erich Honecker, the 77-year-old East German leader, and his aging Politburo colleagues.

“When you compare Honecker to Gorbachev,” said one musician in an East Berlin working-class bar, “there’s not much to compare.”

Those reform groups that have sprouted in East Germany support the government in principle but are calling for talks that would lead to some political and economic freedoms, and they hope that Gorbachev can persuade Honecker and his government to institute such measures.

“I hope Gorbachev will talk with Honecker about reform,” said the New Forum’s soft-spoken Bohley, as her telephone rang with calls from members around the country. “I hope Gorbachev will tell Honecker that he has to begin the reforms on Monday.”

Many East Germans worry that their regime will begin repressive measures immediately after Gorbachev leaves--thus the talk of Tian An Men Square, where hundreds and perhaps thousands of Chinese protesters were cut down by troops last June.

After the threat to Kratschell, another reformist, scientist and New Forum leader Jens Reich, declared Thursday, “I would take these warnings seriously.”

Jens declared that East Germany needs a “constructive Soviet-style dialogue.”

“Only by listening to the complaints and correctly diagnosing them can one stop people from escaping to the West,” said Jens, a molecular biologist.

The New Forum has been refused official status by the Communist authorities, who term the movement “anti-social.” It is more a loose group of individuals rather than a political party opposed to the regime.

So far, says painter Bohley, the government has not interfered with their activities, which are directed from her apartment and those of other members in East Berlin.

She said her group favors improving the amount of consumer goods, cleaning up the environment and ensuring protection from police violence and excessive scrutiny.

“We call on all East German citizens who want to help restructure our society to become members of New Forum,” her manifesto says.

New Forum and other smaller movements do not have much contact with one another, but they are sprouting up in various parts of East Germany.

There are small groups such as the Democratic Departure, the Citizens’ Movement, Democracy Now and Democratic Awakening.

One of the most visible is the movement in Leipzig, East Germany’s second city, which has no name but which regularly turns out thousands of people marching through the city after Monday night services in the Protestant church of the Rev. Christian Fuehrer.

After one of their marches, 11 participants were sentenced to at least four months in jail for disrupting public order, and their case has become something of a cause celebre.

Up until now, the individual protest movements have turned up no one of the caliber of Poland’s Lech Walesa, and therefore the various groups have not had the same impact on the government as Walesa’s Solidarity.

Many of those involved are members of the Protestant Church--people such as Manfred Stolpe, lay president of the Berlin-Brandenburg church.

As to the lack of a leader, Bohley says: “We have waited too long for someone to take the lead. Now people see that there is no one there but themselves, and that they will have to take matters into their own hands or nothing will happen.”

Those who were arrested in the Leipzig demonstrations are remembered in the Gethsemane church, located in a working-class district of East Berlin..

Around the clock, volunteers burn candles on the steps of the church under a sign that says, “Stay Here and Pray for the Men Imprisoned.” And every evening at 6 p.m., about 500 East Germans gather at the church to sing hymns and pray for the deliverance of the 11 in jail.

So far, those nightly meetings have not been interrupted, although the police are much in evidence across the street from the church

Meanwhile, the Communist Party struggles to retain control of the 40th anniversary celebration, which will begin today with parades and speeches.

The biggest event will be tonight, when thousands of youths will hold a pro-government demonstration stage-managed by the authorities.

But as a Western diplomat pointed out, “High spirits have a way of getting out of control, and the police have a way of overreacting.”