TURMOIL IN THE EAST BLOC : East Germans Urged Not to Take Revenge : East Bloc: West Germany’s president also urges them to go slowly on reunification.

West German President Richard von Weizsaecker, in an unprecedented interview on East German television Wednesday night, urged East Germans not to insist on immediate reunification nor to take revenge against the officials of the former hard-line Communist regime.

“What belongs together would grow together,” said Von Weizsaecker, a former mayor of West Berlin, “but must not be forced.”

The West German president used the same words spoken earlier by ex-Chancellor Willy Brandt, also a former West Berlin mayor, who counseled nonviolence and patience for East Germans.

Similarly, ex-Chancellor Helmut Schmidt said that Germany must consider the interests of “its neighbors” in any eventual move toward reunification or federation.

In recent days, the fear of violence during East German demonstrations, particularly against the secret police, has risen.

“It is understandable, it is only human, that there is anger over abuse of power,” said Von Weizsaecker in the interview on the East German national network. “But it is a system of political justice, and not taking the law into one’s own hands or feelings of revenge, that will lead us on.

“We also need the people who perhaps in the past made mistakes,” he added, referring to the discredited former Communist leadership and membership. “It is not just the heroes who can build the future.”

Voicing Worries

Von Weizsaecker publicly voiced the worries privately sounded by many European leaders that the quiet revolution in East Germany could suddenly turn violent.

His appeal for slowing the pace of change reflected similar calls for East German “gradualism” by President Bush, Secretary of State James A. Baker III and many others in recent meetings.

In West Berlin, West Germany’s far-right Republicans party said it intends to organize itself in East Germany and offer candidates in the scheduled free national election May 6. A local spokesman said the party was encouraged by the weekly demonstrations in Leipzig that increasingly are calling for German reunification.

“We think the tendency will grow,” the spokesman said.

The Republicans made a major impact on the West German political scene last January when they won 7.5% of the vote in the West Berlin city assembly, giving them 11 of 138 seats in the chamber. Since then, the party, led by Franz Schoenhuber, a former Waffen SS sergeant, has made gains in every West German local election in which it ran, on a platform based on German nationalism and reunification.

Meanwhile, in East Germany, thousand of schoolchildren joined protests Wednesday calling for an end to the Communist lock on classroom teaching. The official news agency ADN said the children, their parents and teachers marched in East Berlin and other cities, in protests organized by New Forum, the leading opposition group.

Petra Burkert of New Forum said on East German television that the group wants total separation between classroom teaching and the Communist youth organizations, which have dictated the studies program.

Children have been judged mainly on whether they joined party youth groups rather than on their studies, she said, and teachers were promoted based only on considerations of party loyalty.

Secretary of State Baker’s anxiety that events in East Germany could spin out of control has been reflected by proposals that he set forth in Berlin and Brussels this week.

In Brussels, foreign ministers of the Atlantic Alliance countries, taking up the difficult question of German reunification, heard Baker call for gradualism in establishing a “new architecture” for Europe.

It is a concern shared by other European leaders. In Bonn and Berlin, officials have also expressed apprehension about the rapid pace of change in East Germany. But they suggest that diplomats cannot necessarily ensure that change takes place gradually.

They say they are worried about the possibility of a breakdown of authority in East Germany, with unpredictable and possibly violent results.

For the mood in East Germany is shifting, from euphoria over the peaceful revolution that swapped the hard-line Communist regime for a reformist one to deep concern over the issue of reunification with West Germany.

There are also increasing signs that the East German revolution, which began as a desire for change but within the Marxist system, is moving toward a stronger economic relationship with West Germany.

In Leipzig, the “cradle of the revolution,” a Dec. 4 survey of demonstrators, made public Wednesday, showed that almost 40% of 1,200 people questioned said they “greatly favor” merging the two Germanys; 36% said they “favor” it.

About 68% said they wish to see a confederation of the two countries. Only 125 of the 1,200 said they “strongly oppose” reunification.

Stronger Sympathy

The poll was carried out by the Communist Youth newspaper Junge Welt, which reported that sympathy for reunification was stronger in the depressed southern cities of Leipzig and Dresden, where workers believe that reunification would bring a higher standard of living.

“Intellectuals in New Forum (the opposition movement) want to keep East Germany separate,” a diplomatic observer in East Berlin said recently, “but miners in the South and workers in auto plants and a lot of the people in the street want a better life. And they see their best hope in some kind of reunion with West Germany.”

In Monday night’s demonstration in Leipzig, many people carried banners in red, gold and black, the colors of both countries, with the words “Germany--a Single Fatherland.” Others carried banners that bore, on one side, the slogan of the West German Christian Democratic Party, “ Wir sind das Volk “ (“We are the people”), and on the other, “ Wir sind ein Volk “ (“We are one people”).

In Frankfurt, West Germany, the East German writer Stefan Heym, addressing a union meeting Tuesday, said the appeals for reunification reminded him of the early 1930s, the period just before the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler seized power.

“Now,” he said, “they are shouting in Leipzig: ‘We are one people.’ I remember that: One people, one Reich, one--you know what came after that.”

He referred to the Nazi slogan: “One people, one Reich, one leader.”

Heym said he was worried that the nonviolent revolution in East Germany could turn violent.

“Incidents have already happened,” he said, “including some outside the Soviet installations, and I am worried that weapons could be used at any time. Everybody now has a responsibility to see that there are no accidents and that the revolution does not end in a blood-bath.”

Kurt Masur, East Germany’s most famous conductor, said he was shocked that demonstrators for and against reunification had abused each other last Monday.

Masur, who has led demonstrations in Leipzig, told the West German newspaper Die Welt that “the question of reunification must not divide us now.”

He added, however, that “ultimately it is nonsense to claim that people who live in West Germany or East Germany do not want to be reunited.”

Specialists on the German question say that many East German workers expect an immediate surge of economic support from West Germany, though it will take months or years for the new East German leadership to improve the deteriorating economy.

An economist in East Berlin said: “The economic situation in East Germany is much worse than the Communist leadership portrayed it. And this winter, when this becomes evident, many workers will simply accept some form of cooperation or reunion with (West Germany) as the best way to improve their lot.”

A Leipzig demonstrator put it more bluntly, displaying a banner bearing the message: “Reunification Equals Prosperity.”

West Germany is already offering financial aid. On top of earlier announcements, Environment Minister Klaus Toepfer said Wednesday that West Germany will contribute about $580 million for projects to clean up pollution in East Germany.