TURMOIL IN THE EAST BLOC : Immigrant Wave Worries W. German Officials

West German political leaders said Tuesday that the Bonn government may have to make it more difficult for East Germans to resettle in West Germany.

Members of Parliament representing Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s Christian Democratic Party said they were concerned that the influx of East Germans applying for social benefits in the West will put a severe strain on the West German budget.

Oskar Lafontaine, deputy leader of the opposition Social Democratic Party, said the government should move to limit such benefits and encourage East Germans to stay home.

Lafontaine, who is expected to lead the Social Democrats in the campaign during next December’s national elections, told the Duesseldorf daily Handelsblatt that the government should get tougher with the East Germans flooding into the country.

“Increasingly,” he said, “the population regards it as socially unjust that East German citizens can enjoy full benefits without ever having paid a mark in taxes or social security contributions.”

Lafontaine, state premier of the economically depressed Saarland, has warned that West Germany’s generous social benefits could attract unemployed workers from other countries and contribute to the problems of West German areas where unemployment is already high.

He urged East Germans who wish to come west to make sure they have a job and a place to live before leaving home.

About 330,000 East Germans have settled in West Germany this year, many of them since their Communist leaders suddenly opened the East-West frontier on Nov. 9.

Christian Democratic lawmakers, at a party meeting, said they are concerned about the possibility of East Germans abusing West Germany’s benefits programs and that some have proposed stricter rules.

One said the benefits for East Germans should be limited to the greatest extent permitted under the constitution.

Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble warned the meeting that the number of East Germans and ethnic Germans from Poland and the Soviet Union could reach a total of 750,000 by the end of the year.

He said the influx is so heavy that Interior Ministry officials cannot plan from day to day on where to put the new arrivals for their first nights in West Germany.

In East Berlin, meanwhile, the party newspaper Neues Deutschland conceded that the Communist system has failed. It suggested support for some kind of partnership with West Germany.

The East Berlin daily said in its commentary that communism “has definitely failed as a social system in our country,” and it said the “popular revolutionary movement” is responsible for junking the system. It called for a multi-party system.

The paper rejected the idea of reunification with West Germany and urged a “qualified partnership” of the two Germanys.

This theme was echoed by the new leader of the East German Communist Party, Gregor Gysi, who told Swedish Radio that he cannot support the idea of reunification.

“The most important thing is for us to keep our sovereignty,” he said. “That is not only in our interest, but is also of importance for other European countries. If one border in Europe totters, suddenly all of them will.”

Also Tuesday, East Germany released the first of thousands of prisoners under a broad amnesty granted after a hunger strike involving 13 prisons. All inmates with sentences of less than three years will be freed by February, the government said.

At the same time, a spokesman for the Office of National Security said the offices of the security police in many small towns were being closed. The offices originally belonged to the Ministry for State Security, which was renamed and given less importance in the governmental reforms of recent months.