Germany Will Give Another $5.5 Billion to the War Effort : Allies: The Kohl government also will send defensive missiles to Turkey and crack down on illegal weapons exports.

In an attempt to revive Germany’s battered image, Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s government moved onto the political offensive Tuesday, pledging an additional $5.5 billion to support the U.S.-led Gulf War effort and unveiling a plan to tighten export controls to help halt the flow of military-related goods.

He also ordered German army antiaircraft missile systems to Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally, to help deter a possible Iraqi attack against the alliance’s southernmost country.

At the same time, German President Richard von Weizsaecker visited American military families based in Germany in an effort to ease their concerns about anti-American protests that have occurred in Germany since the outbreak of hostilities in the Persian Gulf.

“What we’re doing now is what solidarity demands,” Kohl told reporters following the announcement in Bonn. “We’ve got a clear constitutional rule that we’re not in a position to deploy ourselves . . . but we are in a position to offer material and financial help.”

Successive German governments have interpreted the country’s constitution as banning the deployment of military forces outside the NATO region.

This lack of German military involvement in the Gulf War, coupled with Kohl’s initial lukewarm support as Bonn’s key allies went into battle, the revival of anti-American sentiment in large peace protests and embarrassing reports that German companies have helped Iraqi President Saddam Hussein obtain chemical weapons, have angered and upset allies.

The additional money, to help cover the costs of the war during the first three months of this year, brings the total German contribution toward the allied effort to $9 billion. This amount has included more than $1 billion in military equipment, some of it Soviet-made hardware from the former East Germany.

Shortly after Kohl announced the additional German financial backing, Economics Minister Juergen Moellemann presented a 10-point plan to tighten controls against illegal weapons exports, including the possible use of the country’s counterintelligence service.

“I expect a Cabinet decision by Feb. 6,” Moellemann told a news conference in Bonn.

Moellemann said penalties for those convicted of violating the new controls would be increased, raising the minimum prison term from six months to one year and applying the maximum 10-year sentence to a broader range of cases.

Companies attempting to avoid detection by providing false information or by operating through front companies would be subject to criminal rather than civil proceedings, Moellemann said.

The government moved to reassure Turkey by announcing plans to send batteries of Roland and Hawk antiaircraft missiles to guard its NATO ally against possible Iraqi attacks. Doubts about Germany’s commitment to Turkey’s defense had been raised by a domestic political debate here over whether the government should order home 18 Alpha Jets sent to Turkey as a token of alliance solidarity shortly before war began.

Meanwhile, in a visit with U.S. military families at a base near Giessen, Von Weizsaecker tried to counter the image of anti-Americanism left by the large peace demonstrations held in many German cities and outside U.S. military installations since the start of the war.

In an eloquent, sometimes sorrowful speech to spouses and children of U.S. soldiers in Saudi Arabia, he insisted that “Germany is on the side of the coalition” even if it is bound by its history and constitution to keep its own soldiers out of the war.

He said Germany would instead strongly support the allies, help war victims and refugees, and assist in postwar reconstruction. He said Germany would also, through political means, work to strengthen the United Nations and “the rule of law and peace.”

“I am convinced that my country knows that freedom and peace have their price,” Von Weizsaecker said in a dingy pink-and-white auditorium on a U.S. Army base near here. “They have to be protected and, if necessary, actively defended--not only within the Western societies but worldwide.”

On the issue of Germany’s posture toward the war, he said, “I feel I ought to, and you may wish me to, explain what is going on in Germany today. The subject in itself is burdensome. The only way to cope with it among friends is to speak as candidly as possible.”

Von Weizsaecker, who aides said had asked for the meeting, met for an hour with about 80 wives and children, moving from one knot of women to the next, sharing coffee with them, gossiping about his grandchildren and briefly dandling a 2-month-old girl in a sailor’s suit on his knee.

“It helped us understand more of their side, why they don’t send troops,” said Robin Alvarado, 29, who said anti-American leaflets recently had been distributed at her Army housing complex. “It makes me feel more at ease in Germany. Before, I just thought they all wanted us out.”