Copenhagen (play)

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Data
Title: Copenhagen
Original title: Copenhagen
Genus: play
Original language: English
Author: Michael Frayn
Publishing year: 1998
Premiere: May 28, 1998
Place of premiere: London
Place and time of the action: Copenhagen, 1941
people
  • Margrethe
  • Bohr
  • Heisenberg

Copenhagen (in the original: Copenhagen ) is a play in two acts by the British writer Michael Frayn . It premiered on May 28, 1998 at the Royal National Theater , London .

The three-person piece is based on the historical meeting of the two physicists Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr and his wife Margrethe in 1941 in Copenhagen, which was occupied by Germany . On the basis of this meeting, Frayn addresses questions about the responsibility of science and possible interpretations of the past. He sparked a historical debate about Heisenberg's role in the Third Reich's nuclear program , the so-called uranium project .

Historical background

Heisenberg (left) and Bohr (3rd from left) at the Copenhagen Physics Conference in 1932
Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen

Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg were among the outstanding physicists of the first half of the 20th century and the founders of quantum mechanics . Bohr developed, among other things, Bohr's atomic model and the principle of complementarity ; Heisenberg's uncertainty principle came from Heisenberg . Together they formulated the Copenhagen interpretation around 1927 .

In the years between 1924 and 1927, when Heisenberg was working at Niels Bohr's institute at the University of Copenhagen, Bohr, older and already awarded the Nobel Prize, became a mentor and fatherly friend for the young Heisenberg. A visit by Heisenberg to occupied Copenhagen in September 1941 broke the friendship between the two physicists.

In the Third Reich, Heisenberg headed the so-called uranium project , which researched the technical use of nuclear fission . In this project prototypes of nuclear reactors were developed. After a conversation between Heisenberg and Albert Speer on June 4, 1942, the construction of an atom bomb never became concrete, as it did not appear to be feasible within the deadline that was decisive for the war. Whether and to what extent Heisenberg himself contributed to delaying or even preventing the construction of a German atomic bomb is still controversial today.

Equally controversial is the view of the meeting between Heisenberg and Bohr in September 1941 in Copenhagen, about which even those involved were unable to reach an agreement after the war. In 1957, Heisenberg made his version public in a letter to Robert Jungk . As a result, he had disclosed the German uranium project to Bohr in the hope of reaching a worldwide agreement between physicists against the construction of nuclear weapons. Bohr contradicted this representation. In a draft of a response to Heisenberg's letter from 1957, which was never sent, Bohr emphasized that Heisenberg had given him the impression that Germany was working flat out on nuclear weapons under his leadership.

The historical background also includes the family tragedy of Niels Bohr, which runs through Frayn's play as a recurring motif (“The tiller turns over”): at the age of 17, Bohr's eldest son Christian was washed overboard on a sailing trip in 1934 and drowned in front of his eyes Father.

action

first act

Niels Bohr 1922
Werner Heisenberg around 1927

“Why did he come to Copenhagen?” Margrethe and Bohr are discussing this question in an indefinite place at an indefinite time, long after everyone has died. The mentioned Heisenberg joins them. They conjure up the past: occupied Copenhagen in 1941, which Heisenberg traveled to as a member of a German cultural delegation to visit his old friend Bohr.

The conversation is tense. Heisenberg's frivolous remarks annoy Bohr and Margrethe, who see in him the representative of the German occupying power. Gradually the shared memories of Heisenberg's time in Copenhagen thaw the atmosphere. As in the past, the two physicists go for a walk together. Margrethe stays behind. But after only ten minutes, an angry drill crashes into the apartment. Excited, he urges Heisenberg to say goodbye, who in turn pretends to have to leave urgently.

Heisenberg and Bohr try to reconstruct their conversation at the time. Heisenberg asked “whether a physicist has the moral right to work on the practical use of atomic energy.” Bohr, realizing that the question was aimed at building an atomic bomb, was appalled. He had always trusted that not enough plutonium could be produced to make weapons from his theoretical knowledge. When Heisenberg confirmed that he now knew that uranium fission could be used to manufacture weapons, Bohr broke off the walk in shock. Heisenberg no longer had the opportunity to ask the questions he had actually come to Copenhagen for.

Only now, years after her death, does Heisenberg explain why he came to Copenhagen back then. He was in the position to decide on the progress of the German nuclear weapons program. He tried to establish contact with the Allied program through Bohr . Together, he hoped, the physicists would have a chance to stop the construction of atomic bombs. This agreement never came about. Even the attempt to talk to Bohr failed. Nevertheless, Heisenberg managed to convince Speer that the German nuclear weapons program had little chance of success. As a result, he was able to do what he loved to do best: he researched obsessively, far from the war in the Swabian Haigerloch . And the subject of his research was not a bomb, but a harmless reactor . In retrospect he is convinced "that these few weeks in Haigerloch were the last happy time in my life."

Second act

Heisenberg, Bohr and Margrethe take another foray into the past. Heisenberg is at Bohr's door again, but this time in 1924, when the young scientist first met the Pope of Physics to work at his institute. They resurrect the twenties when they jointly founded quantum mechanics and thus revolutionized physics. Bohr exclaims enthusiastically: "We have put man back in the center of the universe", because her findings always relate an event to his observer. But Margrethe ended the enthusiasm of the two physicists: "Because that is all that was ultimately left of it, that he produced, that bright spring in the twenties - an even more efficient machine to kill people."

Margrethe accuses Heisenberg that the real reason for his visit in 1941 was that the student wanted to face his former teacher under the new balance of power as a victor over the vanquished. And she insinuates that he in no way thwarted the construction of the German atom bomb, that he simply did not understand its physics.

The conversation begins to revolve around what is known as the critical mass , the amount of fissile material needed to set a chain reaction in motion. In an astonishing omission, Heisenberg had never calculated this critical mass himself, but relied on third-party calculations, which overestimated the required amount and thus the cost of building an atomic bomb many times over. Bohr and Heisenberg ask themselves how their conversation in 1941 would have gone if Bohr had not broken off in shock. Bohr should have asked Heisenberg why he was so sure that he would not be able to build an atomic bomb. He would have asked Heisenberg to calculate the critical mass. Heisenberg would have started to do the math himself, and suddenly the German atom bomb would have come within reach. History could have taken a different course, which might have resulted in the destruction of Europe in nuclear war.

At this point Margrethe gives the meeting its final interpretation: “That was the last great demand Heisenberg made of his friendship with you. To be understood when he did not understand himself. And that was the last and greatest act of friendship that you gave to Heisenberg in return. To have misunderstood him. "

In the end, the three of them ponder a time when there are no more decisions to be made and there is no longer any knowledge and thus no more indeterminacy. But until then, the world has survived. “Saved, maybe, by that one brief moment in Copenhagen. By an event that you will never know exactly where and how it took place. Through this final core of indeterminacy in the heart of things. "

Emergence

Frayn came up with the idea for Copenhagen while reading Thomas Powers' book Heisenberg's War: The Secret History of the German Bomb (German: Heisenbergs Krieg. The secret history of the German atomic bomb. ). For Frayn, the controversy over the historical facts and the motivation of those involved were linked to questions that had preoccupied him for a long time: “Why do people do what they do? Why do you do what you do yourself? "

In addition, Frayn was fascinated by the parallels that emerged from the scientific work of physicists in the field of quantum mechanics and their personal lives. The uncertainty about the Copenhagen meeting reflected Frayn Heisenberg's uncertainty relation. Frayn decided for himself that there was a theoretical limit that prevented one from fully understanding another person. As a consequence, his play is not a determined sequence of events, but a variation of possibilities that are repeatedly called into question.

Reception history

Copenhagen premiered on May 28, 1998 at the Royal National Theater in London. On the same day as to confirm the topicality of the play, the implementation of the first Pakistani nuclear weapons tests was announced. The play was so well received by the audience that the production was moved to the Duchess Theater in London's West End .

The popular success also continued abroad. The Paris production was awarded the Prix ​​Molière . On New York's Broadway experienced Copenhagen 326 performances. Frayn's play also received numerous awards from critics, culminating in the Oscar of the theater scene, the Tony Award . The first performance of the German-language version transmitted by Inge Greiffenhagen and Bettina von Leoprechting took place on June 5, 1999 in the Grillo Theater in Essen .

In addition to the success with the public and theater criticism, Copenhagen also aroused scientific interest. Michael Frayn's portrayal of the meeting between Bohr and Heisenberg sparked a heated historical debate about Heisenberg's role during the Third Reich. Historians and publicists who had already published on Heisenberg's person spoke up, including David C. Cassidy , Thomas Powers and Paul Lawrence Rose. Part of this science controversy was fought in the New York Review of Books . Michael Frayn's Copenhagen in Debate and the twelve scientific commentaries in the German-language edition of Copenhagen provide an overview of the debate .

The bereaved relatives of the two scientists also got involved in the debate. In December 2000, Werner Heisenberg's son Jochen published material on the Internet in response to public interest in his father, which was supposed to prove the integrity and humanity of the controversial physicist. The Niels Bohr Archive held a Copenhagen Symposium in September 2001 and published 11 documents on the Internet on February 6, 2002, giving a closer look at Bohr's view of the September 1941 meeting.

In 2002 the BBC Copenhagen filmed it as a television play directed by Howard Davies . The actors were Daniel Craig as Heisenberg, Stephen Rea as Bohr, and Francesca Annis as his wife Margrethe. In the same year, a radio play adaptation of the piece was made in co-production by SWR and WDR, edited by Beate Andres , who also directed. Werner Wölbern , Traugott Buhre and Hannelore Hoger spoke the roles . Another radio play adaptation directed by Fred Berndt and with the participation of Peter Striebeck , Maria Hartmann and Peter Schröder also published Litraton in 2002.

In 2013 an English radio play was created for BBC Radio 3 under the guidance of Emma Harding . The roles were spoken by Benedict Cumberbatch (Heisenberg), Greta Scacchi (Margrethe) and Simon Russell Beale (Bohr).

Awards

literature

  • Michael Frayn: Copenhagen. Piece in two acts. With twelve scientific comments. Wallstein, Göttingen 2002. ISBN 3-89244-635-0
  • Michael Frayn: Copenhagen . Audio book by Litraton, Hamburg 2002. ISBN 3-89469-591-9
  • Matthias Dörries (Ed.): Michael Frayn's Copenhagen in Debate . University of California, Berkeley 2005 ISBN 0-9672617-2-4

Web links

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  1. Two letters from Werner Heisenberg to Robert Jungk ( Memento of the original from August 7, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / werner-heisenberg.unh.edu
  2. Draft of a letter from Bohr to Heisenberg ( memento of the original of October 30, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / nba.nbi.dk
  3. Michael Frayn: Copenhagen. Wallstein, Göttingen 2001. p. 5
  4. Michael Frayn: Copenhagen . Wallstein, Göttingen 2001. p. 34
  5. Michael Frayn: Copenhagen . Wallstein, Göttingen 2001. p. 50
  6. Michael Frayn: Copenhagen . Wallstein, Göttingen 2001. p. 67
  7. Michael Frayn: Copenhagen . Wallstein, Göttingen 2001. p. 75
  8. Michael Frayn: Copenhagen . Wallstein, Göttingen 2001. p. 84
  9. Michael Frayn: Copenhagen . Wallstein, Göttingen 2001. p. 89
  10. a b Hanspeter Born: Alcohol and sometimes women . In: Die Weltwoche of April 18, 2004 ( Memento of April 11, 2008 in the Internet Archive ).
  11. The Unanswered Question by Thomas Powers (English)
  12. Heisenberg in Copenhagen by Paul Lawrence Rose (English)
  13. Copenhagen Revisited by Michael Frayn (English)
  14. Michael Frayn's Copenhagen in Debate (English)
  15. Review notes on Copenhagen at perlentaucher.de
  16. Who Was Werner Heisenberg? (English)
  17. Niels Bohr Archive: Release of documents relating to 1941 Bohr-Heisenberg meeting (English)
  18. Radio play editing (Hördat)
  19. BBC Radio 3 website (English)