East German

MUNICH, Germany -- Her former meal ticket, Katarina Witt, was tooling around town in a new pink Porsche. But the wheels have come off the East German sports machine that Witt's coach, Jutta Muller, used to drive Witt to the top.Witt's star quality defied boundaries, helping her prosper in a world with two Germanies or one. The two-time Olympic champion has done a movie, a television special and an ice-skating tour, and she recently signed a lucrative endorsement...

BERLIN -- Under pressure to turn former East German leader Erich Honecker over to stand trial, the Soviet military has spirited him away to Moscow, officials said yesterday.Although the Soviet Embassy in Berlin refused to make any official comment, officials said privately that Mr. Honecker's medical condition had "worsened acutely" and that he required surgery. He is said to be suffering from heart and kidney problems."We took him to Moscow Wednesday for humanitarian reasons," one official said, saying Mr. Honecker could receive "more appropriate care" there than if he were sent to a German hospital.

LONDON -- Iraqi agents were trained by the former East German secret police to use chemical and biological weapons against civilian targets and are now positioned to launch a terror campaign in the West, according to a usually reliable television documentary shown in Britain last night.The documentary, compiled after a six-month investigation into Iraq's chemical weapons capabilities, suggested that targets could include water supplies or crowded public areas such as metro stations and airports.

BERLIN -- One of Iraq's main chemical and biological warfare facilities was built with the help of East German expertise and was modeled after a site near Berlin, former East German military officials say.In addition, East Germany may have sold Iraq chemical weapons or at least cooperated in providing technical advice on their production in the early 1980s, experts say.The former East German National People's Army (NVA) training facility in Storkow served as a blueprint for Iraq's large training grounds near Baghdad, according to Karl-Heinz Nagler, the former head of the NVA Atomic, Biological and Chemical (ABC)

BerlinTHE ECONOMIC reconstruction of East Germany has proved far trickier and more expensive than the Kohl government first imagined. And while political unification helps, it can be a hindrance.To begin with, most East German enterprises operate at such a low level of productivity that they are simply not competitive with their West German counterparts, no matter how low the wages. As soon as the two economies were linked, East German consumers simply deserted locally produced goods for West German brand names.

BERLIN -- The old East German army, long considered among the best in the Warsaw Pact, was beset by problems ranging from poor living conditions in barracks to top-heavy staff structures.These are the conclusions of Lt. Gen. Joerg Schoenbohm, who has been finding out what the eastern army was like since Bonn assigned him in September to be commander in chief of German armed forces in the east.General Schoenbohm, widely expected to become head of the all-German armed forces next summer, found that the former East German forces had far too many staff officers.

BEFORE LAST FALL'S overthrow of the Communist regime, an American traveling in the German Democratic Republic might have feared, more than anything else, a late-night encounter with the Stasi, the notorious secret police. But reunification has shut down the Stasi and revealed what any traveler in East Germany should have feared more than anything else all along: a serious encounter with a Communist medical system.Last month on a trip through Central Europe, my mother fell in a freak accident in Dresden and badly banged her hip and leg. The hotel staff summoned an ambulance by phone.

As the two Germanys come together once more German-Americans in Baltimore are rallying around their flag.Bill Barr, general manager of Flags, Banners and Pennants on Park Avenue, reported an upsurge of phone calls about German flags yesterday, just as the East German flag with its emblem of two compasses and a hammer was lowered from flag poles in Berlin, where it had waved since 1959. Now the simple black, red and gold striped flag that has represented West Germany since 1949 will ripple across the reunited nation.

BERLIN -- A law that would have excluded small left-wing parties from an all-German parliament was declared unconstitutional yesterday by West Germany's highest court.The Federal Constitutional Court ruled that West Germany's election law discriminated against certain small East German political parties -- primarily the former Communists and leftist citizens' movements. To prevent these parties from being overwhelmed by bigger West German parties, the court said, East and West Germany must have separate election districts.

BROME, West Germany -- On a shelf behind Marga Busch's bar stands a super-cool Coke can sporting sunglasses and headphones. It is made of soft plastic, and Mrs. Busch likes to show customers how the can dances when the music plays."