East Germany Draws Accolades, Warnings on Change

East Germany’s decision to open its borders to the West brought accolades from world leaders, tempered with caution from some and words of warning against too swift a move to reform.

Hungary’s Socialist Party announced its support, with Ferenc Kosa, a member of the party’s Presidium, saying, “The reforms now under way in East Germany will contribute to the unfolding democratization in the whole region.”

Budapest had been concerned about East German insensitivity to Hungary’s own reforms before the replacement of East Germany’s hard-line leader, Erich Honecker, last month by Egon Krenz.

In Warsaw, Solidarity leader Lech Walesa told the Polish news agency PAP that the changes in East Germany “should have been taken much earlier.”

“The drama of the events in East Germany is the result of earlier neglect, as usually happens when someone misses the train of history,” he said.

Czechoslovak Foreign Ministry spokesman Lubomir Marsik said the opening of the East German border “represents a positive solution.”

“The situation was getting difficult for everybody, including Czechoslovakia,” he said, referring to the thousands of East Germans who previously were forced to go West via a third country, often Czechoslovakia.

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher called it “a great day for freedom.” But the fast pace of reforms in East Germany, she added, call “for keeping a very cool head and being very steady and being very practical about it.”

Asked about the possibility of German reunification, she replied: “You are going much too fast.”