AP HEADLINES

East Germany Opens Borders

By NESHA STARCEVIC
Associated Press Writer

BERLIN (AP) - East Germany opened the Berlin Wall and its other borders Thursday, and its cheering citizens crossed freely to the West for the first time since 1961.

Late Thursday, exultant East Germans began passing through Berlin Wall checkpoints and others entered West Germany at other border crossings. Jubilant people pranced and danced atop the Berlin Wall, a sight unthinkable only hours earlier.

Near Brandenburg Gate, East Germans raced through streams of police water cannon and were pulled up the wall by the young West Germans atop it. Some Germans used hammers to chip away at the barrier for keepsakes or in their own small effort to destroy the infamous symbol of East-West division.

About 100 East Berliners at the Brandenburg Gate chanted: "Open the gate! Open the gate!"

Hundreds were seen on the Friedrichstrasse subway in West Berlin, and East Germans also were allowed for the first time at Checkpoint Charlie, the famed Friedrichstrasse crossing run by the Allied military.

Many hugged and kissed total strangers, while cars packed with East Germans and others paraded down the streets of West Berlin in a carnival-like atmosphere.

"It's crazy! It's crazy!" yelled one young man as he sat in the back seat of a car with his parents after a brief trip through the once-impenetrable Berlin Wall.

His parents said they just wanted to see the West - and then drive back. They declined to give their names.

"We heard it on TV, we just decided to go over and have a look," said the young man's father. "We want to show our son a little bit of Kurfuerstendamm."

The Kurfuerstendamm is one of Europe's most elegant shopping strips. For decades, East Germans locked up behind the now-crumbling Iron Curtain could only dream of seeing it. ...

Egon Krenz, East Germany's new leader, also advocated a law Thursday that would ensure free and democratic elections in his communist nation, which has been disrupted by pro-reform demonstrations and weakened by mass flight to the West. ...

More than 200,000 East Germans, nearly 1 1/2 percent of the nation's 16 1/2 million people, have left so far this year - 50,000 since Saturday alone. Most are young, skilled workers vital to the economy.

Hundreds of thousands of people who stayed home have filled the streets to demand democratic reforms and an end to 40 years of rigid one-party rule.