Soviets Ratify Pact on German Reunification

The Soviet Legislature on Monday ratified the treaty permitting German unification, formally ending the four World War II victors’ authority.

The other three--the United States, France and Britain--ratified the treaty last year.

“It’s been 45 years since the war ended. It’s time to live normally,” said Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev, former chief of the Soviet general staff and an adviser to President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

The Legislature, formally known as the Supreme Soviet, also approved a Soviet-German nonaggression pact. However, it gave only general approval to two related treaties on the withdrawal of Soviet troops from German territory and on unspecified transitional measures, the official Soviet news agency Tass said. The documents were sent back to committee to clarify details, Tass said.

Some legislators called for more housing for returning troops and more money from Germany, lawmaker Roy Medvedev told reporters. Germany has already agreed to pay $7.6 billion to the Soviet Union toward retraining demobilized troops and building new housing for them at home.

The treaties, concluded by then-Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze last year, symbolize the fall of the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe.

Lawmakers had predicted a stormy debate but said during a break that the closed session had been relatively tame.

Also, the Soviet Union apparently is concerned about a growing number of soldiers deserting from units stationed in the former East Germany.

More than 200 Soviets have fled, including 35 officers, 116 servicemen, 53 family members and 17 civilian employees, Maj. Gen. Vladimir Zhurbenko told Tass on Monday.

Soviet officials have repeatedly asked the German government to return the deserters for trial, to no avail, Zhurbenko complained.

The six-nation Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany was signed in Moscow in September by the foreign ministers of East and West Germany and of the four Allied powers.

Under the document, the Soviet Union lost East Germany, its most valued military ally. United Germany belongs to NATO.