Ex-East German Chief Resigns Amid Claims of Stasi Ties

Former East German Premier Lothar de Maiziere resigned today as minister without portfolio in the German federal government after claims that he had been an informer for East Germany’s communist state security police.

De Maiziere said he will also give up his positions as vice chairman of Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s conservative Christian Democratic Union and leader of the CDU in the eastern state of Brandenburg.

Announcing his resignation at a news conference, he again rejected the contentions he had acted for the police agency-- known as Stasi--under the code name “Czerny.”

De Maiziere, East Germany’s last prime minister, made the announcement after meeting today with Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and Joachim Gauck, the government official in charge of evaluating Stasi documents.

In a statement read by Schaeuble, Kohl said: “Lothar de Maiziere has earned my complete trust and I have no reason to doubt him.”

De Maiziere, who worked as an attorney before heading the East German government, said he does not know whether the once-powerful Stasi kept a file on him.

“My contact with the Stasi was limited to attempts to help clients. I accepted no money and signed no statement committing myself,” he said.

“I will resign from my post as minister for special assignments, and will not be available for a Cabinet post in the new government,” he said.

Kohl is to form a new government early next year, after the victory of his center-right coalition in Dec. 2 all-German elections.

“The evidence in the files which could connect de Maiziere to Czerny is not clear enough,” Schaeuble said.

German media recently published statements by a former Stasi major, Edgar Hasse, who alleged that since 1982, de Maiziere had reported to the agency about church activities in East Germany and about his contacts with West German officials.

The Stasi was disbanded after the collapse of East Germany’s communist government in fall, 1989. Documents released recently showed that 85,000 people worked as full-time employees of the organization and as many as 300,000 people acted as informers--about one in 30 East Germans.

De Maiziere led the conservative CDU to victory in East Germany’s first free elections March 18, and became the first non-communist leader in the country’s 40-year history.

Upon the Oct. 3 unification of Germany, he joined Kohl’s Cabinet as a minister without portfolio, or specific assignment.