E. German Communist Chief Booed : Reform: Demands for a leadership purge are published.

The youngest member of the East German Communist Party’s ruling Politburo resigned in frustration Saturday, and Communist chief Egon Krenz was roundly booed when he tried to address a crowd outside party headquarters in East Berlin.

Hans-Joachim Willerding, 37, one of three non-voting members of the Politburo, told the official news agency ADN that he could no longer function credibly as part of the Communist leadership.

Willerding, who had risen rapidly in the party and was involved in Communist youth activities, said that the party’s refusal to learn from Moscow’s guidance was “the saddest chapter in our party history.”

The 160-member Central Committee is scheduled to convene an emergency meeting today, and the party newspaper Neues Deutschland published demands Saturday for a purge of the leadership.

It quoted one working-class party group as declaring: “The Politburo has forfeited its advance on trust through irresponsible behavior. That is why we demand the resignation of the Politburo.”

Krenz returned to East Berlin from his hometown of Ribnitz-Damgarten, on the Baltic coast, to address a crowd outside the plain, gray party building in the city center.

But the thousands of Communists gathered in the open space in front of the entrance whistled and chanted “Resign! Resign!”

Some in the crowd called on the Central Committee to step down.

“Out with the reactionary party apparatus,” said a placard held by one of the party members listening to Krenz.

At its meeting today, the Central Committee is scheduled to hear a report about corruption in the party. Krenz promised to urge that all those found guilty of abusing their power be expelled from the party.

But that didn’t seem to satisfy the crowd. A nurse, Beate Zschocke, told the rally: “I deeply despise the way the old party leadership has fled from its responsibility. But I find the hesitant approach of the present leadership just as contemptible.”

And a Communist lawyer, Gregor Gysi, added: “Our party is always lagging behind developments. The other movements and parties were always faster, and that’s the case today, too.

“It is incomprehensible and indefensible. By doing this, you are playing with the future of this party and with the credibility of millions of comrades.”

The crowd’s response to Krenz indicated how shaky his position is. He has never developed the popular appeal that may be needed to carry him through the running political crisis in East Germany.

Meanwhile, East German police arrested a former Communist Party regional chief and a state building contractor Saturday on embezzlement charges, according to ADN.

The news agency said proceedings were begun against Hans Albrecht, former chief in the district of Suhl, one of 15 in East Germany, for “incitement to breach public trust to the detriment of socialist property.” Walter Wolf, director of a state building enterprise, was arrested on similar charges. It gave no details.

Albrecht, a member of the party’s old guard, was voted out of the post Nov. 2.

At the same time, in the Baltic port of Rostok, an arms exporter working for the Communist government came under fire.

ADN said the firm of IMES, controlled by Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski, was listed as a trading company but was actually selling weapons in the Middle East, Latin America and Africa.

The news agency said it remains unknown how the profits from the sales were used. But it said that they were apparently funneled through the Communist Party’s commercial coordination section, which is run by Schalck-Golodkowski.

The arms were stacked in a warehouse, leading the local populace, said ADN, “to express their outrage at how thousands of crates of munitions, firearms and other military technology were being stacked in the immediate vicinity of their homes, mocking every safety precaution.”