70,000 Join Protests in E. Germany : Marchers in 3 Cities Demand Reforms; Police Stand By

As many as 70,000 East Germans reportedly demonstrated for government reforms Monday night in what was described as the largest mass protest since bloody riots in 1953.

Initial reports from East Berlin, Dresden and especially Leipzig--where up to 50,000 assembled--indicated that the police did not violently break up the peaceful gatherings, as they had over the weekend.

In Leipzig, East Germany’s second-largest city, the Rev. Christoph Wonneberger told West German television: “There was a great feeling of fear in the city about how this evening could turn out. But as far as we know, the police were not used once.”

Calls for Freedom, Democracy

Shouting “We need freedom!” and calling for democracy, marchers defied a massive police presence and took to downtown streets, which had been cordoned off by authorities, after a prayer service at the Nikolai Church. Thousands had gathered both inside and outside of the baroque edifice.

Thousands more assembled nearby in the main market square, and a local resident reported that some carried banners reading: “We Don’t Want Violence. We Just Want Reforms.”

Earlier Monday, East German leader Erich Honecker indicated that attempts to change his hard-line government policies would fail. He compared the nationwide protests to the pro-democracy movement earlier this year in China, which was brutally repressed by the Beijing government.

In Bonn, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl strongly criticized the actions of the East German authorities in ordering police to put down the nonviolent appeals for economic and political reforms with truncheons, cattle prods and snarling police dogs.

Meanwhile, several thousand people gathered in East Berlin on Monday night inside and outside the Gethsemane Church, where a similar demonstration supporting imprisoned leaders of the reform movement had been broken up by club-wielding police on Sunday night.

There, Bishop Gottfried Forck urged about 3,000 people, who were maintaining a 24-hour candlelight vigil, to speak their minds in order to create a dialogue with the Communist regime.

“We ask the forces of law and order to treat the impatience of critical citizens--which shows itself on the streets--with as much restraint as possible, so that we can avoid damage that might never be repaired,” the cleric said.

“We urgently appeal to the dissatisfied people in our country not to take part in unauthorized street demonstrations, so that those with political responsibility cannot say they refuse to allow themselves to be put under pressure for reforms.”

Most of the snowballing demonstrations in East German cities have started with a few peace groups, churches and other organizations seeking to persuade the Honecker government to introduce similar reforms to those that have been enacted recently in the Soviet Union, Poland and Hungary.

Visiting Western journalists were not allowed to remain in East Germany after midnight Sunday, and resident correspondents were not permitted into Leipzig on Monday night to observe the demonstration.

Hundreds of East German protesters have been injured and seized by police during the past week’s peaceful demonstrations, which coincided with the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Communist state.

Honecker’s scornful remarks about the need for reforms in his country and the nationwide unrest came at a meeting Monday with Chinese Deputy Prime Minister Yao Yilin, according to ADN, the official East German news agency.

“Any attempt by imperialism to destabilize socialist construction (and) slander its achievements is now and in the future nothing more than Don Quixote’s futile running against the steadily turning sails of a windmill,” ADN quoted Honecker as telling Yao.

In Bonn, Kohl, in heated criticism of the ruthless police tactics used in breaking up the East German protests, declared:

“While the leadership celebrates with torchlight parades, the goose-step and military marches, the world witnessed the East German police and state security break up peaceful demonstrations with brutal violence.”

Kohl rejected East German charges that the Bonn government is provoking citizens into fleeing to the West. He said he is willing to talk to the Honecker regime if it would advance the cause of reform in East Germany.

“As long as people are leaving East Germany out of conscience or fear,” he said, “then we will accept them here with open hearts.”

Asks for Reforms

However, Kohl said, he would prefer that the government of Honecker, 77, introduce reforms, as recommended by Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, so that East Germans would stay where they are.

During the past four weeks, an estimated 45,000 East Germans have fled to West Germany, while thousands of others have emigrated legally.

On Monday, West German diplomats in Poland reported that the Warsaw Embassy is filling up with East Germans--after more than 1,000 were sent to the West last week. About 400 more had arrived, they said.

In West Berlin, officials said that East Berlin checkpoints were reopened to limited access by Germans and foreign tourists after being virtually shut over the weekend.

Opposition Social Democrats in Bonn joined in the protests against the East German regime Monday, with party leader Hans-Jochen Vogel pressing for the release of the demonstrators seized by police.

“Let them all free,” he declared. “Don’t lock the people up, but talk to them and listen to them.”

Some Want Sanctions

Kohl and Vogel have been criticized in some quarters for not invoking sanctions against the East German government. Bonn’s support of East Germany runs to more than $1 billion a year.

But the West German government, and the opposition as well, argue that economic sanctions would harm the East German people more than the Communist leadership.

Honecker seemed oblivious to West German entreaties to respond to the popular outcry in favor of economic and political liberalization. In his conversation with Yao, according to the ADN, “The two agreed there was evidence of a particularly aggressive anti-socialist action by imperialist class opponents with the aim of reversing socialist development.

“In this respect,” the agency quoted Honecker as saying, “there is a fundamental lesson to be learned from the counterrevolutionary unrest in Beijing and the present campaign against the GDR (East Germany) and other socialist states.”

The East German regime has applauded the June 3-4 crackdown in Beijing’s Tian An Men Square, in which hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people were killed.

CHANGE IN HUNGARY: Reformers now dominate Hungary’s ruling party. Page 11