Kohl in unification talks with East German conservatives

German conservative leaders who won a resounding victory in their

country's first free elections.

Government sources said Mr Kohl's late-night talks in Bonn with East

German Christian Democratic (CDU) leader Mr Lothar de Maiziere and other

conservative politicians concentrated on new laws needed to implement

currency, economic and social union.

Chancellery Minister Mr Rudolf Seiters told reporters there would be a

news conference tomorrow about the talks. ''They are taking place in an

outspoken, constructive and excellent atmosphere,'' he said.

Mr Kohl is anxious to fulfil his promises to East German voters during

the election campaign to introduce its powerful currency and extend its

welfare system to East Germany.

The CDU heads the three-party Alliance for Germany which won 48% of

the vote in Sunday's elections and Mr de Maiziere is likely to become

Prime Minister.

Bonn expects the new East German Government to announce a

comprehensive legislative programme in its first statement of policy,

probably at the beginning of April.

The CDU package would include protection of private property and

investments and freedom to start new businesses as well as changes in

the tax system and trade union legislation, Government sources said.

CDU economic adviser Mr Gerd Koenig said that, if the laws all go

through on schedule, preparations for introducing the West German Mark

as legal tender in East Germany could start in May.

But the Alliance would need the backing of East Germany's Social

Democratic Party (SPD), which has rejected coalition overtures.

Mr Koenig said East Germany should announce soon that it would join

Bonn's Federal Republic under Article 23 of the West German constitution

and work out other details of unification later.

Meanwhile, East Germany's 400 newly-elected Parliamentarians may have

to be vetted for possible links with the hated former Stasi security

police.

''If we don't sort it out now we will have a repeat of what happened

in 1945 in West Germany with the survival of old Nazis in state

functions,'' said Baerbel Bohley, an opposition activist who helped to

overthrow the Stalinist regime last year.

Bishop Gottfried Forck, a member of the Government-backed body

supervising the Stasi's break-up, told reporters they had serious

indications that ex-informers were among the 400 people elected to

Parliament in Sunday's elections.

''To rule out such suspicions and guarantee the protection and

integrity of deputies we ask for your approval for an investigation of

your members,'' the panel wrote to the 13 parties in the new Parliament.

The row cast a long shadow over East Germany's young democracy. The

Stasi's huge archives, guarded by citizens' committees, are a time-bomb

containing potentially compromising information on many of the 16

million East Germans.

''Those Stasi files will break human lives for years,'' a Western

diplomat said.

Bishop Forck said the matter was so urgent that the parties should

agree by Friday that Church and party representatives should look into

Stasi files, overseen by state prosecutors.

Mr Rainer Eppelmann, who took over the Democratic Awakening party last

week after its leader Mr Wolfgang Schnur was exposed as a Stasi

informer, said up to 10% of deputies in the new Parliament had helped

the reviled security police.

A senior East German Social Democrat resigned today, three days after

being elected to Parliament, amid allegations that unnamed candidates in

his area had been Stasi informers.

Mr Wilfried Machalett, SPD leader in the southern Erfurt district,

told the local daily Thueringer Allgemeine he was quitting because he

was disgusted with politics and denied that he had ever worked for the

Stasi. -- Reuter.