E. Germany Takes Holocaust Blame : Atrocities: In its first action, new regime voices ‘sorrow and shame’ and begs forgiveness from ‘all the Jews of the world.’ Forty years of Communist denial end.

Expressing “sorrow and shame” Thursday, East Germany for the first time shared blame for the Holocaust and begged forgiveness from Israel and “all the Jews of the world.”

The historic apology ended more than 40 years of Communist denial as East Germany began its uncertain journey on the road toward reunification with West Germany.

It came on the day East Germany swore in its first democratic government, confirming human rights lawyer Lothar de Maiziere as prime minister.

The fledgling democracy’s first declaration “before the world” boldly confronted the darkest chapters of East German history.

The new government also apologized to the Soviet Union for the “terrible suffering” its people endured during World War II, and thanked Moscow for the East Bloc reforms wrought by perestroika , Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s program of reform and restructuring .

At the same time, though, it sharply condemned the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia and lamented that East German troops were used to help crush the Prague Spring out of “fear and cowardice.”

The somber declaration was the first act of the Volkskammer, or Parliament, whose 400 deputies approved it with a standing ovation and a moment of silence to commemorate victims of the Nazis. The resolution also offered asylum in East Germany to persecuted Jews and sought diplomatic relations with Israel.

“We, the first freely elected parliamentarians of the GDR (German Democratic Republic) . . . on behalf of the citizens of this land, admit responsibility for the humiliation, expulsion and murder of Jewish men, women and children. We feel sorrow and shame, and acknowledge this burden of German history,” the statement said.

“Immeasurable suffering was inflicted on the peoples of the world during the era of national socialism. . . . We ask all the Jews of the world to forgive us. We ask the people of Israel to forgive us for the hypocrisy and hostility of official East German policies toward Israel and for the persecution and humiliation of Jewish citizens in our country after 1945 as well.”

The watershed statement was read by Sabine Bergmann-Pohl, the Parliament’s Speaker, before the chamber formally elected its prime minister and Cabinet.

De Maiziere, a 50-year-old Christian Democrat, is a classical musician as well as a lawyer. He becomes the country’s first non-Communist leader.

The grand coalition that he has fashioned will draft the blueprint for reunification with West Germany, most likely focusing first on key questions involving East German property and the upcoming currency union, which will replace the non-convertible East German mark with the powerful deutschemark.

Negotiations over merging the two Germanys are scheduled to begin next week in East Berlin, with economic unity as the first order of business.

The new East German government vowed to proceed “swiftly and responsibly” with what De Maiziere described as its main goal of forging “a united German state in a united Europe.”

The country’s new defense and disarmament minister, Rainer Eppelmann, a pacifist pastor once jailed for refusing military service, indicated that East Germany favors NATO membership after reunification. However, he was quoted as telling the official news service ADN that no NATO troops should be stationed on former East German soil.

He also conceded that “as long as there are two alliances in Europe, there will also foreseeably be two German armies.”

The Volkskammer’s statement Thursday attempts to erase the half-truths and carefully adjusted facts riddling East Germany’s 40-year history.

East Germany’s Communist hierarchy twisted Hitler’s hatred of the political left into the framework of their Stalinist state, denying any responsibility for the Holocaust on the grounds that East Germany was itself the legacy of victims of the Third Reich.

While generations of West Germans agonized over the slaughter of more than 6 million Jews and debated the issue of collective guilt, East Germans collectively opted out. Young East German schoolchildren, for example, visited the former Nazi concentration camps on their soil, but left with the impression that mainly Communists had suffered there.

During a 1984 visit to Buchenwald, an East German teacher led her teen-age pupils in front of the concentration camp’s ovens and was overheard telling them:

“You are the sons and daughters of the victims of Buchenwald. It is your duty to keep our socialist state strong so that nothing like this ever happens again.”

A museum at the camp is devoted almost exclusively to commemorating the Communist victims. Plaques in small villages throughout East Germany pay tribute to local leftists imprisoned by the Nazis.

Simple historical realities, such as the fact that Hitler’s electoral support was higher in regions now part of East Germany than in the West, were conveniently forgotten.

While West Germany has paid about $50 billion in reparations so far either to Israel or to individual Jews, East Germany has paid nothing. The Volkskammer’s statement pledged to back all efforts to find “a just form of compensation” for losses the Jews suffered during World War II.

“We pledge our willingness to contribute as much as possible to the healing of mental and physical anguish of survivors and to provide just compensation for material losses,” the statement said.

However, no specific plan to pay damages was discussed, and East Germany’s crumbling economy is unlikely to be able to bear such a financial burden without help from Bonn.

The Israeli government cautiously welcomed the East German apologies.

“We have not received the full text of the East German declaration but from what has been quoted in the media, we welcome it and see it as an encouraging change of the East German stand,” Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yossi Amihud said.

The Central Council of Jews in Germany also greeted the Volkskammer’s action. Heinz Galinski, chairman of the organization, expressed “deep satisfaction” and said the recognition of responsibility would “open new perspectives.”

In Los Angeles, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said of the resolution: “It is an important first step not only for the victims of the Holocaust but for the generations of young East Germans who were systematically kept in the dark . . . . What needs to follow is not only discussions for reparations for the victims of the Nazis but the firm commitment to inoculate the youth of East Germany against the resurgence of neo-Nazism.”

In Washington, Deputy State Department spokesman Richard Boucher commented at a press briefing: “I think there’s widespread recognition that this is an important historical statement turning over from the past to looking at the future.”

Boucher also offered the Bush Administration’s praise for the new government: “The formation of the new government is the culmination of an historic process of democratization. The achievement is a tribute to the courage and determination of the East German population.”

The East German government also pledged to respect postwar German borders in a bid to calm Polish worries.