Kohl Puzzled by Uproar Over Polish Border : Reunification: He sticks to his position as criticism grows both abroad and in his own government.

Chancellor Helmut Kohl professed deep surprise Monday at the whirlwind of criticism generated here and abroad over his refusal to firmly recognize the present borders between East Germany and Poland.

He told a news conference in the federal capital, “I don’t understand the amazement over this,” referring to widespread negative reaction to his blunt objection to guaranteeing Polish postwar frontiers.

Kohl’s obstinacy on the Polish border question has led to the most serious criticism of his status as a statesman since his insistence in 1985 that former President Ronald Reagan accompany him to a military cemetery containing graves of SS soldiers.

His ambiguous position has also led to charges that he might wish to head a revanchist united Germany, which would attempt to regain the vast lands ceded to Poland and the Soviet Union in the 1945 Potsdam settlement.

Kohl’s position has caused a crisis in his own governing coalition, with Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher and other leading Free Democrats publicly disputing Kohl’s stance. That crisis remained unresolved Monday after a series of meetings between the coalition partners.

The chancellor also declared Monday that the easiest way to reunification would be through a vote of the East German Parliament to become part of West Germany rather than first writing a new constitution. The Parliament will be elected on March 18.

In East Berlin, however, Communist and opposition politicians agreed to a social charter to be submitted to the parliaments of both Germanys as the basis for negotiations about the constitution of a reunified Germany.

The charter calls for guarantees of the right to work and the right to housing; humane working conditions; education and health services for all; protection of pensions; equality of the sexes, and social integration for the disabled.

Of his position that only a united Germany could decide on the final status of the Polish border, Kohl declared Monday: “I cannot see any reason for mistrust. Whoever, like me, wants honest relations with Poland must sit down and discuss these questions.

“I have a very clear legal position,” he added. “What more does anybody want? Who can doubt it?”

Legally, observers note, Kohl has a point: The final delineation of the German-Polish border, as outlined at Potsdam and other conferences, has to wait upon a permanent German peace settlement with the victorious allies.

However, Kohl’s critics believe that he could resolve the issue that troubles Poles and Russians simply by promising that he, as chancellor of West Germany or a united Germany, accepts the border with Poland, running from the Baltic Sea along the line of the Oder and Neisse rivers to Czechoslovakia.