E. Germany Picks a Non-Communist : East Bloc: Egon Krenz resigns as chief of state and Manfred Gerlach is appointed to the post. The government appeals for calm in the tense nation.

East Germany named a non-Communist head of state for the first time Wednesday as the government struggled to “stabilize this country step by step.”

Manfred Gerlach, 61, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, was appointed acting chief of state after the sudden resignation of Egon Krenz, the former Communist Party chief.

“We are in a political and economic crisis and we’re trying to get out,” government spokesman Wolfgang Meyer said in an interview.

“We are trying to cooperate with all political forces, political movements and groups to stabilize this country again step by step,” he said.

But tension and distrust clearly have been mounting in recent days with widespread charges that Communist leaders amassed fortunes in hard currency through shady deals that included smuggling weapons and art.

Fears that angry citizens might storm military installations prompted the government to issue an urgent appeal Wednesday for “calm and restraint.”

Thousands of East Germans tried to overrun offices of the hated security police earlier this week in Leipzig and were held back by opposition groups who formed a human chain.

In a statement carried Wednesday night by the official ADN news agency, the government reported “increasing signs” of planned attacks against army bases.

No specific incidents or other details were provided, but the statement included a thinly veiled warning that the soldiers are “armed and trained” to counter any “attack from outside.”

Army officers issued a statement, addressed to citizens and soldiers, saying: “Such intrusions could cause danger for the security of the German Democratic Republic. Illegal entry to weapons, munitions and fuel will be blocked.”

The military leaders expressed “concern for securing peace” and pledged to work with Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces to secure peace in Central Europe. “Only together can we preserve the sovereignty of the German Democratic Republic and protect our country from anarchy and chaos,” they said.

Government spokesman Meyer said that “everybody is worried about the growing tension. In any such situation, there are groups which try to create terror and violence.”

The resignation of Krenz, 52, was further evidence that the rudderless Communist Party is sinking.

Meyer said Krenz “made a lot of mistakes” since replacing Erich Honecker as party chairman and head of state in October.

Honecker, 77, was unceremoniously expelled from the party Sunday and is under house arrest for alleged misuse of office.

“Krenz was very hesitant about deciding things, and there was pressure both within and outside the party,” Meyer said.

“He was choosing the wrong people. He would choose people for the Politburo who had been rejected on the regional level in their own districts,” Meyer said. “That happened two or three times.”

Krenz has not been accused of any criminal wrongdoing. The former Dresden party boss acknowledged that he lacked public confidence.

“My years of membership in the Council of State and Politburo under the leadership of Erich Honecker diminished confidence in my policy for the renewal of socialism,” Krenz said in a statement carried by the official news agency.

He said he was resigning “in the interest of stability.”

Krenz warned of “anti-socialistic forces” in East Germany and called for a joint effort to repel them. “In this hour of greatest danger, all those who love this country must stand together out of patriotic duty,” said.

The position of chief of state is a largely ceremonial post, and the only key position that Krenz still held after the entire Communist Party Politburo and Central Committee resigned.

Gerlach said he would serve until Parliament can elect a permanent president. No date for that has been set.

Gerlach, a lawyer, quickly took up the cause of free elections and other causes pressed by opposition leaders as the Communist Party unraveled over the last several weeks. He demanded that the party give up its monopoly on power and permit greater openness.

But he also made it clear in a television interview that “we are a party of socialists in a socialist system. The task before us now is to define what socialism means and how we can make it meet the needs of the people,” he said.

Last week, the Communist-dominated Parliament ended the guarantee of the party’s leading role in society, and last weekend, the entire party Politburo resigned.

The future of the party is now in the hands of a 25-member working group, which is drafting a new program and constitution.

With Krenz’s resignation, the group announced it will hold an emergency party congress Friday, a week earlier than it had planned.

“Everything hangs on that party congress,” said a spokesman for the working group.

The government, headed by Prime Minister Hans Modrow, has sought to distance itself from the tainted Communist Party.

Modrow, himself a Communist Party member, enjoys some measure of popular support and has not been implicated in the corruption scandal.

“His image is squeaky clean,” said one Western diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity.

Government spokesman Meyer said there is “a very clear separation now between the party, state and government.”

He said that under Honecker, “Everything was together and the party more or less decided what the government had to do.”

Modrow’s government includes 11 non-Communists and 16 Communists. Previously, only four of a total of 45 ministers were not party members, Meyer said.

Western diplomats said the Communist Party, which ruled East Germany with an iron hand for 40 years, now is fighting for survival.

“There are a lot of fingernails left up on the edge of the cliff,” said one diplomat.

The government spokesman rejected speculation that East Germany’s best hope for economic and political stability might be reunification with West Germany.

West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl has outlined a 10-step program towards such a goal, should the East Germans desire it.

“For us, there is no question of reunification,” Meyer said, “and I am convinced it is not the will of the majority of East Germans.”

NEW CZECH REGIME--The premier threatens to quit if changes are rejected. A12

FAST FORWARD IN EAST GERMANY

After years of East German government corruption and mismanagement, hard-line Communist Party leader and President Erich Honecker was forced to resign Oct. 18. He was replaced by Egon Krenz, a party member described as a moderate. But he proved unpalatable to the nation’s ever more militant reformers and stepped down Wednesday. Manfred Gerlach, leader of the Liberal Democrat Party, became acting head of state, the first non-Communist ever named to the post.