TURMOIL IN THE EAST BLOC : E. Germany Scraps Agency in Charge of Hated Secret Police : Reforms: Action by the Communist leadership seeks to satisfy a major demand of the opposition movement.

East Germany’s Communist government sought to satisfy a major demand of the country’s mass opposition movement Thursday by abolishing the state agency in charge of the huge and hated secret police apparatus.

Spokesmen for the Office of National Security told Western journalists that the institution was being shut down and its responsibilities distributed among other ministries. The office was created last month to replace the State Security Agency, popularly known as the Stasi, which ran a vast network of agents to spy on East Germans and repress internal dissent.

No details of the reorganization of the security apparatus were available Thursday. Government spokesman Wolfgang Meyer, while confirming that the Cabinet had acted on the issue, said no official information will be released until the government reports on its actions at a “round table” of political parties and opposition groups.

Opposition groups demanded the dismantling of the domestic secret police at the first meeting of the round table last week. Earlier, crowds of demonstrators around the country had occupied or besieged the regional and local offices of the Stasi in cities around East Germany, in part to prevent the destruction of evidence of corruption.

Ad hoc citizens’ committees in Dresden, Rostock and other cities are still standing guard around the state security buildings and overseeing their operations. Though the present security forces chief, Wolfgang Schwanitz, has described the occupations as violent “stormings,” no injuries have been reported and tensions appear to have diminished in recent days.

Even without the official action taken Thursday, the state security apparatus around the country has been rapidly collapsing. Seventeen top officials of the agency were forced to resign last week, and Schwanitz said personnel have been reduced by up to 50% in some divisions as agents were sent to work in mines, border checkpoints or the transport industry.

A spokesman for the agency said Wednesday that in addition to the occupations in big cities, local security offices in many small towns are being closed in cooperation with opposition groups.

Government spokesman Meyer said at his weekly news conference after the Cabinet meeting that while the government is seeking to satisfy the round-table groups’ concerns about the security forces, the service would not be abolished. East Germany will continue to keep up a security apparatus, “like every other country,” he said.

Opposition groups and the citizens’ committees now monitoring the former Stasi installations have said they would tolerate a continued spy service only if it were directed exclusively toward external enemies. They have also demanded the trial of dozens of former Stasi officers accused of corruption or abuse of power.

Meyer said that the special hospital used by the state security will be opened to the public soon and that the now-notorious compound where the country’s Communist leaders have lived will be turned into a 400-bed rehabilitation center.

Former Communist leader Erich Honecker and several other deposed officials are still living under house arrest in the well-appointed villas of the Wandlitz compound near East Berlin. But Meyer said that Honecker would have to move out by February so that the new medical rehabilitation center could be installed.

Meanwhile, one of the country’s principal new opposition groups proposed a three-point plan leading to a neutral confederation of German states. A press conference by the Democracy Now group in East Berlin reflected the growing sentiment in the country for a move toward union with West Germany.