Soviets to E. Germans: Go Slow : NATO Role Again is Ruled Out

The Soviet Union warned East Germany’s new leaders today to move slowly toward unification with West Germany and reiterated that a united Germany could not be a member of NATO.

It also said that the runaway victory by the conservative Alliance for Germany in Sunday’s East German general election had been helped by massive interference in campaigning by West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s ruling coalition.

“We respect the choice of (East German voters), but we also expect the new government in East Germany to respect its obligations and our interests,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady I. Gerasimov told a news conference.

Gerasimov, in his first comments on the results of the elections, said this meant in particular that a united German state “should not be a member of NATO,” since this would destabilize Europe.

“We want to synchronize the process of German reunification with European integration,” Gerasimov added. “Make haste slowly, this is our motto.”

“We think (unification) is a process that should go by stages, step by step, not overnight, taking into account Germany’s neighbors and the European Community in general,” Gerasimov added.

The question of membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, he said, is “just one of the aspects of the ‘German problem’ in general, which is going to be discussed and discussed and discussed.”

In Washington, the White House today hailed the free elections in East Germany and said the march toward a united Germany is “inexorable.”

White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the strong showing by the conservative alliance linked with West German Chancellor Kohl’s party also “would seem to lend support” for U.S.-backed efforts to keep the new Germany inside NATO.

Gerasimov reiterated criticism voiced by the official news agency Tass of the substantial part played by West German politicians in the East German election campaign.

“I did not like the way that West German politicians took a very active part in the campaign, which is interference,” Gerasimov said.

In East Berlin, the victorious conservative alliance, which favors speedy unification with West Germany, today proposed a broad coalition government. But one of the parties invited to join the Cabinet immediately refused, making it much more difficult for the conservatives to achieve a two-thirds majority in Parliament. Such a majority would allow Parliament to simply declare a merger with the West.

Social Democratic leader Ibrahim Boehme said his party, which favors reunification at a slower pace than the alliance does, had decided against entering a coalition with the conservatives, led by the Christian Democrats.

In a post-election news conference, Lothar de Maiziere, who is likely to become East German premier, said today that the remainder of the Berlin Wall must be torn down “as soon as possible as a clear sign of the merging of the two German states.”

De Maiziere, chairman of the Christian Democratic Party, also said talks with the West German government on monetary, economic and social union must be accelerated.