The number of refugees mobbing the West German Embassy tripled overnight to about 4,000 Friday and diplomats said they were quickly running out of space as more East Germans took advantage of relaxed travel restrictions.
Despite East German cooperation in allowing the refugees to emigrate, the processing of the refugees' applications was painfully slow, prompting fears that many would have to spend the night on the cold streets.Diplomats said the East German Embassy in Prague was geared to handle the emigration papers of only 50 to 70 refugees a day, while each day East Germans were streaming into the West German Embassy by the thousands. The Bonn government said about 4,000 had taken shelter at the mission by noon Friday, up from 1,300 the previous day.
"There has been a dramatic heightening of the situation," said West German Foreign Ministry spokesman Juergen Chrobog said.
West German diplomats contacted East German diplomats in Bonn to discuss ways to speed up the process of releasing the refugees from their East German citizenship, and other officials negotiated with the Czech government to arrange facilities to accommodate new arrivals.
Diplomats said it was possible the number of refugees soon might exceed the 7,000 who camped at the West German Embassy under deplorable sanitary conditions in late September and early October, before the East German governnent dropped its resistance to letting them leave.
In Warsaw, Poland, about 1,000 East Germans were at the West German Embassy Thursday waiting for transport. Another 386 refugees arrived in West Germany from Hungary to raise to about 68,000 the number who have fled East Germany since August.
Meanwhile, state-run television in Poland reported several hundred Poles have decided to try to emigrate to East Germany, apparently as "simple way to get a West German citizenship later."
The broadcast said the Poles applied for East German citizenship in the northern seaport of Szczecin, but it was not known if their requests were granted.
The exodus has continued despite attempts by Egon Krenz, the communist leader who replaced Erich Hon-ecker Oct. 18 during nationwide demonstrations, to persuade the people he planned to introduce reforms.
The refugees in Prague said they had so little confidence in Krenz's wish to introduce democratic reforms that they thought a general strike would be the only weapon to bring change. Some said they had taken part in the daily mass demonstrations but the result was nothing but promises.
"Politically, morally and socially the German Democratic Republic is on the verge of a breakdown," one man said Thursday.