Communists Become Minority in East German Government : Politics: Eight opposition leaders join the Cabinet. The move is made to ensure stability until elections in March.

The East German Parliament, in a move designed to prevent political chaos, voted Monday to include in the government members of opposition groups who led the fight against the Communist regime.

In approving Prime Minister Hans Modrow’s request, the Parliament added eight new Cabinet ministers, placing the Communist Party in a minority for the first time in 40 years.

Modrow is seeking to ensure political stability through the elections scheduled for March 18.

The new ministers, among them a Protestant pastor, a church historian, a mathematician and a physicist, have no specific areas of responsibility. They head the eight major opposition groups--New Forum, Democratic Awakening, the Social Democratic Party, Democracy Now, the Greens Party, the Green League, the Independent Women’s Assn. and the Initiative for Peace and Human Rights.

They join the 26 Cabinet members who took over last November in place of ousted Communist leaders Erich Honecker and Egon Krenz.

At Monday’s weekly round-table meeting, which brings together representatives of the government and opposition groups, the opposition urged the government not to persecute former members of the state security police, the detested Stasi. One opposition leader, Werner Fischer, said that although the Stasi was unconstitutional and violated laws, “that does not mean that all Stasi employees were criminals.”

“If enterprises continue to refuse to accept former Stasi workers and threaten strikes,” he said, “we will never solve our problems.”

Meanwhile, Wolfgang Krebs, the official in charge of East German currency matters, discounted speculation that East Germany and West Germany soon will be using the same currency.

For days, speculation has had it that the two Germanys would soon agree on a common currency, with West Germany in control, as a way to keep the East German economy from collapsing.

But Krebs told the news agency Reuters: “This is complete nonsense.”

Krebs admitted, however, that he will discuss a series of reforms with Otto Poehl, head of the West German Federal Bank, when they meet today in East Berlin.

Economics Minister Christa Luft told the session that replacing the weak East German mark with the powerful West German mark should be left to a referendum on uniting the two states.