Bonn and Warsaw Mark East-West Thaw : Diplomacy: Change in the East Bloc is high on the agenda at a meeting of Kohl and Mazowiecki. Poles indicate disquiet over the possible reunification of Germany.

Two old enemies, West Germany and Poland, reached out to each other Thursday in the hope that their common commitment to East European reform will be strong enough to keep the process moving forward, even through the upheaval in East Germany, which lies between them.

“The reform developments not only in Poland itself but also in the Soviet Union and Hungary have ushered in a period of dynamic change,” Chancellor Helmut Kohl told his host, Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki, in a dinner table toast on the first day of a state visit.

Kohl’s visit to Poland is the first by a West German chancellor in 12 years, and the first by any Western leader since September, when Poland installed the only East Bloc government not headed by a Communist in 40 years.

Kohl, who met Thursday with Lech Walesa, leader of the labor movement Solidarity that now dominates the government, said in his toast: “Especially, the people (in East Germany) hope that the state and party leaders there will perceive the signs of the time and bring about fundamental changes in the political, economic and social system.”

Mazowiecki agreed, saying: “A stable Polish state, overcoming its crisis--the success of democratic reform taking place in it--will be an important factor favoring these truly historical transformations on a broader European scale.”

Kohl’s visit, more than two years in the making, has taken on new significance in the last few weeks because of the mass flight of East Germans to the West, unprecedented anti-government demonstrations in Berlin and other cities and the resulting shake-up of the Communist Party leadership and policies.

Early today, Kohl told reporters that he might have to shorten his visit here because of East Germany’s decision to open its border with West Germany. “Developments are now unforeseeable. How long I can continue my visit (to Poland) as scheduled I must leave completely open,” Kohl told a midnight news conference in the Polish capital.

An aide to Kohl, Horst Teltschik, said in a pre-arrival interview published here that West Germany sees the success of the Polish reforms as “a very important factor” in keeping the pressure on the East German regime.

“There are still forces within the East German Communist Party that only wait for the failure of the reforms in Poland in order to have an excuse for not carrying out reforms in their own country,” Teltschik said.

Events in East Germany are viewed with mixed emotions in Poland. To the extent that changes there further the process of liberalization throughout the region, the Solidarity-led coalition government of Poland regards those changes as supportive of its own goals.

However, there is concern here that events are moving so fast in East Germany that they may provoke a backlash that could act as a brake on reforms throughout the region.

As Walesa put it in a weekend interview with the West German newspaper Bild am Sonntag: “Here in Poland, we had thought that the call for reforms in East Germany would get so loud much later, and changes would come after that. Now it seems that East Germany has moved into third place after (Poland and) Hungary. This worries me because what is done too quickly is dangerous.”

Poles are also uneasy because the changes in East Germany have put the question of German reunification prominently on the European agenda.

Kohl reminded his audience Thursday of how close reunification is to German hearts when he referred to the “millions of my fellow countrymen who were subjected to a regime that they have not accepted up to this day” after World War II.

But Poland, which lost about 20% of its population in the war, is anxious for reassurances about its own security in such a changing continent.

A survey last week by the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza found that nearly 15% of Poles still feel hostility toward the Germans, another 30% feel aversion, and nearly 37% are indifferent. Less than 20% said they feel friendly toward Germans.

To Poles, the specter of German reunification raises the question of Poland’s western border, which after the war was shifted about 100 miles west into what had been Germany. The border question figured prominently in an hour-and-45-minute meeting Thursday between Kohl and Mazowiecki, spokesmen for the two leaders told reporters.

Kohl was said to have repeated his assurances that while some Germans displaced from these lands 45 years ago may feel otherwise, his country renounces any territorial claim against Poland and reaffirms the inviolability of the present borders.

Polish officials want such assurances in legal form. But Kohl, as the representative of only part of the German people, a part sharing no border with Poland, said he could not oblige.

Mazowiecki softened Polish concerns about German reunification by saying that the division of Europe should be overcome in a “phased and evolutionary” manner.

Kohl brought with him a package of economic assistance for Poland that reportedly totals more than $1.5 billion. Details were not expected to be made public until the formal signing of a joint declaration at the end of the visit next Tuesday.

A senior official of the Polish Foreign Ministry told a reporter that West Germany has promised $250 million in emergency economic stabilization funds, more than $1 billion in standby credits, and forgiveness of hundreds of millions of dollars in debts.

West Germany is Poland’s most important Western business partner and its leading Western creditor, though a senior diplomat here noted Thursday that the upheaval in East Germany may create a problem for Warsaw in this respect.

Kohl has pledged generous financial help to East Germany if it undertakes truly democratic reforms. If it should come down to a choice between aiding fellow Germans or helping Poles, the diplomat said, West Germany would almost certainly choose to help the East Germans.

“From that standpoint,” he said, “it is unfortunate for Poland that they’re not the only game in town anymore.”

Mazowiecki said that in today’s world, economic cooperation is decisive in determining relations among nations.

“The assistance which we need and the economic cooperation which we desire will be a substantial element of the entire dimension of European relations,” he told Kohl. “For the good of Europe, the division into countries of highly successful economic development and countries suffering elementary difficulties must be overcome.”

Solidarity strategist Adam Michnik, writing about the Kohl visit in Gazeta Wyborcza, argued that economic cooperation “is not a question of ‘aid for Poland’ (but one of) supporting the process of anti-totalitarian evolution in Central and Eastern Europe.” He said it is “a question of the democratic future of our continent, and in this perspective we should see the future of our nations.”

Development of West German economic and political interests in the Soviet Union and East Europe is central to what a senior Western diplomat here described as the “new role in the world” Kohl is trying to assume for West Germany.

In another revision of Kohl’s schedule, a visit to the sites of World War II concentration camps at Auschwitz and Birkenau was postponed. The visit was to have taken place Saturday but was set back 24 hours because of Jewish objections to the coincidence with the Jewish Sabbath.