Kohl Accused Over E. German Election : Reunification: Former Chancellor Brandt sees an attempt to intimidate voters on the question of currency reform.

Former Chancellor Willy Brandt, the opposition Social Democrats’ senior statesmen, bitterly accused Bonn’s ruling Christian Democrats on Thursday of trampling on the dignity of East Germans during the election campaign.

He complained that in East Germany’s first free elections, scheduled for Sunday, the “bad habits of West German election campaigns have been exported into the virgin electoral politics of East Germany.”

Brandt, who is honorary chairman of the Social Democrats in both Germanys, implicitly singled out Chancellor Helmut Kohl, leader of the Christian Democrats, for attempting to intimidate East Germans by playing politics on the issue of currency reform.

“East Germans directly affected or worried must be spared a further period of torture in limbo and be given clear answers as soon as possible after March 18,” he said, referring to the election.

In recent days, a wide range of East German public figures have complained that West Germany is more or less taking over the election campaign, and in the process treating the local candidates as puppets.

Addressing that issue, Brandt told a news conference in Bonn: “In the coming period of transition, it is vital not to hurt the self-esteem of our East German compatriots but to strengthen their feeling of being partners worth the same as we are.”

Brandt also criticized Kohl’s attempts to keep other nations’ participation in German reunification talks to a minimum, including his original plan to bar Poland, and his insensitivity on the Polish border issue.

Brandt urged that the talks include all of Germany’s neighbors.

Brandt, 76, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his diplomatic openings to East Germany and the Communist Bloc, also differed with Kohl on how German reunification might be achieved. Kohl has said repeatedly that the simplest way would be for an East German parliament to vote to adopt the West German constitution--in effect, vote for a merger on West German terms.

But Brandt said the best way would be a referendum drawn up and voted upon by both German states.

As a result of the momentum toward reunification, pushed by Kohl, “the joy that the train (of unity) is rolling has become mixed with the worries of those who fear falling under its wheels,” Brandt said.

Brandt, who is immensely popular in East Germany, was wheeled into action during the final days of the campaign, observers suggest, because recent polls show the alliance of conservative parties in East Germany pulling up even with the Social Democratic Party, which had previously enjoyed a strong lead.

But the East German conservatives suffered their own setback Wednesday when the leader of one of the parties in the coalition resigned after admitting that he had been an informant for the ousted Stalinist regime’s hated security police, known as the Stasi.

On Thursday, the Democratic Awakening Party elected pastor Rainer Eppelmann as its new leader. The 47-year-old former peace campaigner took over from disgraced ex-chairman Wolfgang Schnur, whom the party voted to expel.

In a televised statement, Eppelmann appealed to voters not to allow “this human and political tragedy” to turn them away from Democratic Awakening, which is part of the three-party Alliance for Germany backed by Kohl.

Meanwhile, the outgoing four-month-old coalition Cabinet under reform Communist Prime Minister Hans Modrow held its last session. It said the economy has begun to stabilize despite a continuing drain of workers emigrating to West Germany.