East Germany

Willi Stoph, 84, a former East German premier who was dropped as a defendant in a manslaughter trial for killings at the Berlin Wall because of illness, died April 13 in Berlin after a long illness, Hanno Harnisch of the Party of Democratic Socialism, which succeeded the East German Communist party, said yesterday. Mr. Stoph moved up in East Germany's Politburo hierarchy to become premier in 1970. As East Germany's communist rulers faced growing pressure for reform from a peaceful, popular uprising, Mr. Stoph was ousted Nov. 7, 1989, with East German leader Erich Honecker.

Q. How can you get Blue Cross of Maryland to process a claim fast? A. Make it for executive entertainment expenses.United Germany is making it a crime to have spied for East Germany against West Germany but not the other way round.You may soon earmark 10 percent of your tax payment for deficit reduction. The other 90 percent is for debt service.

POTSDAM, Germany -- When Gabriele and Reiner Krumnow were given the chance in 1990 to buy the house they had been living in for six years, they snapped it up."We couldn't believe it. It was something we'd dreamed of for years," said Mrs. Krumnow, 39, a clerk in the Brandenburg state government.But their luck turned out to be short-lived.The Krumnows have been told that because they bought their house after a retroactive cutoff date, they and at least 200,000 other homeowners across former East Germany could lose their homes to West Germans who had owned or inherited the property earlier.

BERLIN -- More than a year of public debate over united Germany's orientation ended yesterday with a decision to move the German government from Bonn to Berlin.The vote followed an emotional 12-hour debate in the German lower house of parliament, or Bundestag, that split political parties down the middle and threatened to continue endlessly through the night.In the end, 337 parliamentarians voted for Berlin while 320 backed Bonn. There were two abstentions and one invalid ballot."The decision was for Berlin because only Berlin symbolizes our country's unification," Berlin Mayor Eberhard Diepgen said.

VOGELSANG, Germany -- From the moment he first saw the little village castle with a "For Sale" sign on the front door and battlements looming against the sky, Hans-Rainer Schielke knew he had to have it.Never mind that it was damp and drafty, with falling plaster, rotting beams and peeling wallpaper. Never mind that a huge owl patrolled the dark attic like a fluttering spirit, or that the grounds were choked with weeds, or that the place seemed more dungeon than palace.Schielke, 43, looked and saw his future, as well as a bit of his past.

CHICAGO -- A survey of 13 predominantly Judeo-Christian countries shows substantial majorities in most of them believe in God and in life after death, refuting perceptions of social scientists that society isn't as religious as it used to be."It is too early to write an obituary notice for religion," said Rev. Andrew Greeley, Roman Catholic priest-sociologist-author and a coordinator of the study released yesterday by the International Social Survey Program. "God didn't die, not even under socialism."

CHICAGO -- A survey of 13 predominantly Judeo-Christian countries shows substantial majorities in most of them believe in God and in life after death, refuting perceptions of social scientists that society isn't as religious as it used to be."It is too early to write an obituary notice for religion," said Rev. Andrew Greeley, Roman Catholic priest-sociologist-author and a coordinator of the study released yesterday by the International Social Survey Program. "God didn't die, not even under socialism."

One year after crowds swept through the streets of Eastern Europe toppling communist dictators with demands for more freedom, the region's women have found democracy a less than liberating experience."

Herbert Brokering hands out packets of flower seeds as small symbols of the great changes taking place in East Germany.Brokering is a Lutheran clergyman and teacher who was in Germany when the Wall cracked last November. He's just returned from another trip this summer as East and West Germany prepared for the unification slated now for Oct. 3.The seeds from the "old" East Germany come from "the people's own seed industry" in Erfurt, a city where horticulture has been established for years, a city, this Lutheran clergyman notes, where Martin Luther studied and became a priest.

BERLIN -- Somebody has taken a shot at solving the contentious property ownership problem in eastern Germany: They set fire to the land records.Police reported that arsonists burned up about 1,300 feet of property files stored by the old Communist government of the German Democratic Republic in a castle near Barby, a small town 70 miles southwest of Berlin.Called the most important property files in East Germany, the records are crucial in determining who owns what in most of the old Communist part of Germany.