Bonn’s Offer of Aid Hinges on Changes in E. Germany

West Germany today offered massive financial aid to East Germany if the Communist nation revamps its centralized economy, and West Berlin’s mayor warned of economic problems caused by the newly opened borders.

Also today, East Germany’s new premier called for a coalition government but gave no indication that the opposition will be part of it, despite widespread protests pressing for an end to the Communist monopoly on power.

Premier Hans Modrow, considered a reformer, also said the Berlin Wall, though open to travel, must remain standing to keep AIDS, crime and other Western problems out of his Communist country, a newspaper said today.

A leader of East Germany’s biggest opposition group, New Forum, said today that the movement could work with a revamped Communist Party but that naming Modrow premier was not enough.

Since the opening of East Germany’s borders last week, there has been growing speculation and concern about the implications for the East German and West German economies.

West German Economics Minister Helmut Haussmann, in announcing the aid package today, compared his conditional offer to the Marshall Plan put together by the United States to help Europe recover from World War II destruction.

Haussmann did not name a figure for the proposed aid and said the plan would be useless if East Germany did not carry out a “thorough change” of its troubled centrally planned economy.

Speaking to reporters in Bonn, Haussmann said reforms promised by East Germany’s new Communist Party leader, Egon Krenz, had so far led to more questions than answers.