Honecker’s Wife, 5 Other East German Officials Quit : East Bloc: More refugees head for the West as 50,000 protesters march in East German cities.

Six senior East German government and political officials resigned Thursday as the new East German leader, Egon Krenz, conferred with Polish officials in Warsaw about the political reforms that have been undertaken there.

In East Berlin, the official news agency ADN reported that more than 50,000 demonstrators marched in various cities Thursday evening, calling for political and economic reforms--which the news agency characterized as a “social crisis.”

The latest to fall from the Communist firmament, according to the official news agency, were Margot Honecker, minister of education and wife of ousted leader Erich Honecker; labor boss Harry Tisch, two regional party leaders and the heads of two minor political parties.

At the same time, thousands of additional East Germans crossed into Czechoslovakia hoping to escape to West Germany. About 8,000 people reportedly have taken this route in the past two days, since travel restrictions to Czechoslovakia were removed.

Krenz flew to Warsaw to meet with Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki, head of Poland’s new, Solidarity-led government, and with Communist President Wojciech Jaruzelski and Communist party chief Mieczyslaw Rakowski.

Krenz arrived in the Polish capital after spending two days in Moscow, where he discussed with President Mikhail S. Gorbachev the economic and social reforms Gorbachev is pressing on his country.

Of his talks in Warsaw, Krenz told reporters, “I can take a lot of good from this experience back (to East Germany).”

PAP, the official Polish news agency, quoted Krenz as saying: “I think that all socialist states must learn from each other, and by learning and enriching our experience we can all move ahead.”

The agency said the Krenz visit indicates that the new East German regime desires to maintain close ties with Poland, even though Warsaw has introduced dramatic reforms of the sort that were rigidly resisted by Krenz’s predecessor, Honecker--who resigned last month under increasing popular pressure for change.

The Polish government newspaper Rzeczpospolita offered Krenz the following advice: “Only a wide opening of activities for opposition parties, letting young people speak out, and clear changes of the political system can calm the situation and start a new stage in the history of this state.”

In East Berlin, the official news agency ADN announced the resignations of Margot Honecker, as minister for higher and technical education, and Tisch, a member of the party Politburo, as head of the Confederation of Free German Trade Unions. Both had been expected since mid-October, when Erich Honecker was forced out as national leader, and Tisch’s resignation was announced in advance by the official news agency Tuesday.

Tisch, who was accused of ignoring workers’ rights, is expected to be expelled soon from the Politburo as well. To replace him as leader of the confederation, the news agency said, the Central Committee of the ruling Socialist Unity (Communist) Party, named Annelis Kimmel, head of the confederation’s East Berlin division.

The other four officials whose departures were announced include the heads of two parties allied with the Communists in the National Front and party leaders in two of the 15 East German bezirke , or counties.

They are Heinrich Homann of the National Democratic Party, Gerald Goetting of the Christian Democratic Union, Herbert Ziegenhahn of Gera and Hans Albrecht of Suhl. No official reason was given for their resignations.

The East German news agency produced another jolt with news that the board of the official union of composers and musicians resigned Thursday after coming under pressure to produce more openness in the arts.

In Prague, Czech sources said that as many as 8,000 East Germans have flooded into Czechoslovakia since travel restrictions were removed Wednesday. About 1,300 of them were said to have applied at the West German Embassy for documents that will enable them to travel to West Germany.

The East Germans must go first to their own embassy in Prague, where they renounce their citizenship, and this step apparently has developed into something of a bottleneck. According to West German officials in Prague, the East German Embassy can process only about 100 applications a day.

In light of this, West German officials have asked Czechoslovak authorities to designate sheltered places where the East Germans can wait.

Also in East Berlin, the news agency ADN on Thursday quoted retired spymaster Markus Wolf as saying that the state security apparatus must be responsible to the legislature.

Wolf, who retired in 1987 after directing the East German espionage service for 29 years, said in Leipzig that “it is wrong to believe that the Ministry for State Security stands above the state and can be considered independent of developments in society.”

A rumor circulating in East Berlin has it that Wolf will come out of retirement and take a top government job.

In Bonn, meanwhile, French President Francois Mitterrand arrived for two days of discussions with Chancellor Helmut Kohl. The situation in East Germany was said to be high on their agenda.

Bonn sources said Kohl had been persuaded to drop his insistence on visiting an ethnic German church in Silesia during his visit to Poland next week.