Unity Near, Kohl Tells E. Germans : Elections: 100,000 cheer West Germany’s chancellor as he stumps for candidates of a new party.

ERFURT, East Germany —  West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl further blurred the fast-evaporating distinction between the two Germanys on Tuesday, telling a mass East German election rally here that reunification is now a foregone conclusion.

“Unity is within our grasp,” he said. “We will reach our goal together, facing the future as one.”

Kohl’s speech to a cheering, flag-waving crowd estimated at well over 100,000 marked the first time a West German chancellor had ever addressed a public rally in East Germany’s 40-year history.

The crowd, which filled the main cathedral square and spilled into side streets, was equivalent to about half the population of this industrial city. Some watched from rooftops of buildings surrounding the square.

Hundreds waved the red, black and gold West German flag, and a large banner beneath the podium proclaimed, “God Protect Our Chancellor and Promoter of German Unity.”

Kohl’s appearance on behalf of the East German Christian Democrats and the three-party alliance it leads reflects the growing influence and importance of West German politicians in shaping East Germany’s first free elections.

Kohl’s 45-minute speech, interrupted by chants from the crowd of “Helmut, Helmut” and “Germany--our united fatherland,” is the first of six major campaign appearances he plans to make before the March 18 elections.

West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher addressed a rally of his East German sister party, the Liberal Alliance, Saturday in the city of Halle, where he was born, and former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt is scheduled to address a major Social Democratic Party rally in Leipzig.

The East German elections will be the first free vote in Eastern Europe since Stalinism crushed political pluralism in the region in the late 1940s. The last democratic election in what is now East Germany took place in 1932, the year before Adolf Hitler took power.

Well known to East Germans through years of watching West German television, Bonn’s leading politicians find themselves in the extraordinary position of getting top billing in a political campaign technically outside their own borders.

The three-party alliance that Kohl spoke for Tuesday was formed only two weeks ago. East Germany’s Christian Democrats have suffered in their public support because they were junior partners in the Communist-dominated government that ruled East Germany for four decades.

The fact that these appearances hardly raise eyebrows is an indicator of just how far the citizens of both Germanys have come to accepting reunification.

The prominence of West German politicians also reflects the dearth of credible public figures in East Germany after 40 years of Communist rule and the political vacuum it has left.

In East Berlin, a joint commission led by Cabinet ministers of the two Germanys met Tuesday for the first time on monetary and economic union between the nations. A quick agreement is unlikely, but the panel hopes to determine what is needed to achieve such a union.

Coupled with talk of the currency union, the participation of West German political parties has left many East Germans grumbling that the reunification process is, in fact, little more than a takeover by the West.

Some have even used the emotion-laden word anschluss-- literally “annexation”--that was used when Hitler took over Austria in 1938.

Many East Germans, especially older ones, are clearly unsettled by the pace of the push toward reunification.

“What’s going to happen to us?” asked Sofia Schwartz, a clerk in the city’s archive office.

In the fading light of an unusually warm winter evening, these grumblings seemed to evaporate as the crowd thundered its approval of Kohl’s words. Speaking from a large podium in the city’s main cathedral square, Kohl promised investment, peace and prosperity.

He attempted to reassure nervous East Germans that socialism’s extensive system of benefits would be reshaped but not disappear and that the elderly would be cared for.

“They deserve our respect, and they will get it,” he said.

He said that he once wanted a slower, more measured move toward German unity but that events had prevented it.

“Time is running out,” he said. “People are leaving. We want them to stay and build this country up.”

“We want an economic and social partnership,” he added, speaking of monetary union. “It could come very, very fast. We’ve got no time to lose.”