West German officials are bracing for a resurgence of leftist terrorism and right-wing extremism as a result of the coming unification of the two Germanys, published reports said Friday. East and West German Cabinet ministers meanwhile were preparing talks as early as next week to meet the July 1 goal of a ``monetary, social and economic union.'' In an interview with the respected Bonn newspaper Die Welt, the head of West Germany's criminal investigations office said the leftist Red Army Faction terror gang views the unification process as a ``wide open field.'' ``It is conceivable that the progress in unification also presents a potential danger,'' Die Welt quoted Hans-Ludwig Zachert as saying. Zachert said his office already had been in contact with its counterparts in East Germany. The Red Army Faction, after a series of attacks and slayings in the 1970s, remains in officials' eyes a continuing threat. The latest major attack attributed to the gang was the Nov. 30 slaying of Alfred Herrhausen, the No. 1 banker in West Germany. Zachert also warned the tumult in East Germany could bring an increase in organized crime and drug trafficking, which were virtually unknown under the toppled hard-line Communist regime. In Hamburg, the respected newsmagazie Der Spiegel reported West German counterintelligence officials were stepping up surveillance of the far right. ``Right-wing groups increasingly are striking up contacts in East Germany and getting good feedback there,'' the magazine reported. West Germany's extreme rightist Republican Party, despite facing mounting troubles at home, claims to have found recruits in East Germany since November's peaceful revolution. Der Spiegel quoted officials as saying in a report that ``after 40 years of political oppression, it follows as a matter of course that there will be radical to extreme rightist developments.'' Ultrarightists have tried to disrupt the weekly pro-democracy demonstrations in Leipzig several times. The magazine quoted officials as saying that right-wing extremism was likely to increase in a united Germany and that leftist terrorists had already found like-minded comrades in East Germany. ``Unification, the officials estimate, will lead to new activities of the Red Army Faction,'' according to Der Spiegel. In Bonn, Foreign Minster Hans-Dietrich Genscher said he wants to meet soon with his new East German counterpart, Markus Meckel, to prepare for unification talks involving the United States and the Soviet Union. Genscher, according to the Express newspaper of Cologne, said there was a ``highest measure of agreement'' between the two Germanys and that ``with such a common interest we Germans could be the architects of an undivided Europe.'' East Germany's new non-Communist government, led by Christian Democrat Lothar de Maiziere, took office Thursday.
