E. Germany Vows ’91 Free Elections : East Europe: Bonn is given assurances. Until recently, such a step would have been inconceivable.

East German leaders have assured the West German government that free elections will be held within two years, a senior emissary from Bonn reported Tuesday.

West German official Rudolf Seiters, after holding talks with East German leader Egon Krenz and Prime Minister Hans Modrow, said he was told that the elections could be held by the spring of 1991. Until a few weeks ago, such free elections would have been considered inconceivable in the former hard-line Communist state.

Seiters, who also was preparing for a visit to East Germany before the end of the year by West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, declared: “I do not think an election date before the summer of 1990 would be realistic.” But he said elections could come within months after that.

The West German government has made free elections a central condition for the massive economic aid that Bonn is eventually expected to extend to the faltering East German economy.

On Tuesday, Modrow also said East Germany would crack down on the contraband trade that has sprung up since the border with West Germany was opened Nov. 9. At a factory in East Berlin, Modrow told workers the government will announce steps today to stop the speculation in goods and currency since the frontier opened.

Because of the artificial currency rate in East Germany, East or West Germans can buy subsidized goods with cheap marks in East Berlin--thereby creating shortages and sending up the price.

Modrow admitted such regulations would be difficult, declaring: “Unpopular measures will have to be reckoned with.”

He said, “The GDR (East Germany) must not become a nation of speculators. I cannot understand how many citizens are simply throwing away money they worked hard for.”

The crackdown is expected to include border checks on people moving currency in one direction and goods in the other. But with the frontier in a state of chaos since it was suddenly opened, few formal customs stations are still in operation.

Modrow was backed up by Protestant Bishop Gottfried Forck, who urged West Germany on Tuesday to impose customs and exchanges on its side of the frontier to discourage smuggling. The West Germans have never set up controls with East Germany, on the grounds that the separation of two Germanys was artificial and temporary.

“I asked the (West German) government for help to protect East Germany from bleeding to death financially and economically,” Forck said after meeting Seiters.

Seiters said he would make a return trip to East Berlin in about two weeks and repeated that Bonn is prepared to give East Germany massive help--once it was convinced that political and economic reforms would be irreversibly introduced.

Seiters also agreed that some kind of currency reform is necessary between the two Germanys because the East mark is artificially pegged at a 1-to-1 level, while it is only worth one-tenth to one-twentieth of the West mark on the free market.

Thus, East Germans can get their welcome money of 100 marks (about $54), exchange it on the black market for 1,000 East marks, buy subsidized goods in East Germany and take the purchases back to West Germany to sell at a handsome profit. And they can repeat the process, over and over.

On Tuesday, too, members of East Germany’s leading opposition group, New Forum, said the country needs time to organize itself for free elections. Scientist Sebastian Pflugbeil said most founding members would prefer that free elections be held later, rather than sooner.

He said the emerging democratic opposition groups are having trouble organizing themselves into effective political parties--particularly when competing against the huge Communist Party.

The New Forum leader said his group as yet has only limited access to printing presses for newspapers and information sheets needed in free elections. Further, he said, because most members have full-time jobs, they can only work in their spare time to prepare for free elections.