Protesters Throw Eggs at Kohl as He Visits Eastern City : Germany: Citizens are unhappy about the economic deterioration since unification.

A group of angry protesters booed and threw eggs at Chancellor Helmut Kohl on Sunday as he made his first visit to the east German region since his election victory last December.

The crowd of about 300 mainly young people ambushed Kohl as he entered the Thuringia State Parliament to attend a conference on problems of the unified Germany.

Some demonstrators held banners, including one that read: “You Should Not Lie”--a reference to Kohl’s promise that last October’s unification would bring prosperity to the former East Germany.

Unemployment in this industrial and administrative center is now about 40%, while the eastern German average is about 30%.

Eastern Germans also resent the fact that Kohl had not set foot in the region since his election, despite the rapidly deteriorating economic conditions. For many, his absence underscored a growing division between the affluent west and the crisis-ridden east.

Kohl cut short his Easter holiday to make the hastily arranged visit in an effort to stem the criticism.

Earlier in the day, Erfurt residents mainly ignored the chancellor as he walked half a mile from a church service with his wife, Hannelore, to visit a hospital.

Along one narrow street flanked by hundreds of apartments, only three people bothered to open windows to look outside. On another street, Kohl met no one at all.

He occasionally drew subdued applause and waves. There were no flags. At one point, five young men stood on a wall and shouted, “Give us work!”

The reception was both a measure of the degree of resignation that has descended over the city’s population and an indicator of just how dramatically the mood in eastern Germany has changed during the last year.

In February, 1990, Kohl was greeted in Erfurt’s main cathedral square by a rapturous crowd of 130,000, roughly half the population. They cheered, waved flags and believed as he promised that unity would bring a better future.

“No one will be worse off; many will be better off,” he pledged.

Conditions here and elsewhere in the region have turned Kohl’s words into a bitter joke.

One of the city’s main employers, the Ermic electronics components factory, recently announced a survival plan that called for laying off 19,000 of its 23,500 employees. Other factories are also in trouble.

Stefan Jarisch, a 26-year-old electrical engineer who waited outside the church with about 100 other residents to get a glimpse of the chancellor, said he had voted for Kohl in last December’s general elections but would not do so again.

“There is real mood of resignation,” he said.

A woman standing nearby added: “We expected something completely different. We wanted freedom and an easier life. But now we see problems we never even conceived of before.”

A recent public opinion poll showed that only 2% of eastern Germans considered their economic situation good, compared to 66% in the western part of the country.

At a news conference later in the day, Kohl expressed sympathy and understanding for those who fear for the future. He urged them not to give up.

“I’m sure the direction we’ve taken after unification is right,” he insisted. “Now it’s important that we work together.”

Kohl repeated his earlier optimistic tone in remarks to Erfurt hospital workers.

“I’d like to come here in a year and see the developments that will have taken place,” he said. “If we work together, we will have a good future.”

Kohl cautioned that Germans must not allow themselves to divide into two separate people now that they have united.

Since unity, the terms wessie and ossie have become common in differentiating western from eastern Germans. Western Germans have expressed resentment at having to pay higher taxes to subsidize the eastern portion, while eastern Germans frequently complain that they have no voice in national politics and have been relegated to second-class citizens .

“We have to learn to listen to each other, to speak to each other and to understand each other better,” Kohl said.