New E. German Leader Meets With Gorbachev

BERLIN--East German Communist Party chief Egon Krenz headed to Moscow yesterday to discuss reform proposals with the architect of perestroika, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

The official news agency ADN reported this afternoon that Krenz had flown to the Soviet Union but it did not specify when he departed.

He was scheduled to meet with Gorbachev on Wednesday morning and hold a news conference in the afternoon before leaving the Soviet capital, ADN said.

Krenz's first foreign trip began after night demonstrations in nine cities. About 500,000 East Germans took to the streets to demand democratic reforms in the largest protests in East Germany's 40-year history; about 300,000 people marched through Leipzig.

Group Encourages Czechs

East Germany's largest opposition group yesterday sent a message of support to human rights activists in Czechoslovakia.

The statement from the New Forum opposition group, which counts more than 15,000 members, reflected the growing feeling that Krenz's leadership is serious about loosening restrictions on free speech.

"We are convinced that new times will come to you, too, and that the Prague Spring will finally have its Summer," New Forum said in a letter sent to Czechoslovak human rights activists. The letter was made public in West Berlin.

Czechoslovakia began a sweeping program of liberal reforms under Communist leader Alexander Dubcek, but the so-called "Prague Spring" was quashed by the Warsaw Pact invasion of August 1968.

The current Communist leadership in Prague has strongly rejected the need for reforms and has dealt harshly with dissent.

About 10,000 people demonstrated in Prague on Saturday for more democracy. Protesters were beaten by police and more than 300 were arrested.

Monday's protests in East Germany took place in Leipzig, Halle, Schwerin, Karl-Marx-Stadt, Cottbus, Magdeburg, Dresden, Poessneck and East Berlin, according to the state-run news agency ADN.