Communist Boss With a Popular Touch : East Bloc: The new prime minister has been called ‘East Germany’s Gorbachev.’

Hans Modrow, the man elected prime minister of East Germany on Monday, is one of the few senior Communist officials with a genuine popular touch.

As Communist Party chief in Dresden, he approved the demonstrations in the southern city that led to the most profound political shake-up in East Germany’s history.

An outgoing, confident politician, he personally participated in last week’s Dresden march calling for reforms--walking shoulder-to-shoulder with ordinary citizens in the once-lovely queen city of the Elbe River, which was devastated by Allied bombing during World War II.

Furthermore, when he took over the job as party chief of Dresden and the surrounding political region, he spurned the fancy official mansion, limousine, car and other trappings of Communist success and opted for a modest, three-room apartment in town.

He has spoken out for political and economic reforms, arguing that the Communist Party’s existence was at stake in the country’s continuing crisis.

The style of the 61-year-old leader has focused as much attention on him as on East German head of state Egon Krenz. He has often been called “East Germany’s Gorbachev,” a reference to the Soviet Union’s reformist president, Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

In fact, some observers thought Modrow would have been selected instead of Krenz for the nation’s top post Oct. 18. However, at the time Modrow was not even a member of the ruling Politburo, although he has been since elevated to a post in that body.

In recent years he has been considered something of a political outsider, running Dresden in a more liberal fashion than most of his fellow regional party chieftains. But that very status has increased his standing with rank-and-file party members, and he is frequently mentioned as a successor to Krenz should the current leader be cast aside by the increasingly fractious party.

Modrow, born near the Baltic Sea, started his career with the Communist Youth League, where the official press called him by his nickname, “Hansi.” He served in East Berlin and won a doctorate in economics.

He served in the army at the end of World War II and spent four years in a Soviet prisoner of war camp. But today he is on the best of terms with Soviet leaders.

Modrow’s reformist views did not sit well with Krenz’s hard-line predecessor, Erich Honecker, who deliberately kept him away from East Berlin for many years.

Eventually, he was shunted aside to Dresden. There, he tried to build up the country’s electronic industry, among Eastern Europe’s best, and channeled funds into rebuilding the once-gracious city center.

However, he may be politically vulnerable because during his stewardship in Dresden, the area experienced the highest rate of emigration from East Germany.