35 pages • 1 hour read
Michael FraynCopenhagen
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1998A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Act IChapter Summaries & Analyses
Act I, Pages 1-18 Summary
Now deceased, the spirits of Margrethe and Niels Bohr have a conversation. Margrethe asks her husband why he met with his onetime pupil and former friend Werner Heisenberg in Copenhagen in 1941. Heisenberg had explained his reason for the meeting but, over time, the reason has become obscured. The meeting was difficult to arrange; Denmark was under German occupation at the time, and Margrethe remembers her husband being remarkably angry with Heisenberg. Bohr believes that he “remained remarkably calm” (6). The meeting, however, was the end of their famous friendship.
Heisenberg, also deceased, considers the meeting. It is one of only two things the world remembers about him, the other being his uncertainty principle. Though Heisenberg and Bohr were incredibly close in the 1920s, Margrethe always viewed the German as slightly alien and unlikable. Bohr reminds her that Heisenberg a very great physicist. Bohr himself was the father of modern atomic physics; many great physicists of the era came to study under him in Copenhagen. His close relationship with Heisenberg was made difficult by the Nazis’ rise to power.
In September 1941 Heisenberg takes a train to Copenhagen. He is set to give a lecture on astrophysics but has memorized a message for his old friend and mentor. Bohr knows Heisenberg is in the city and that, presumably, he wants to meet. Heisenberg’s German nationality and his work for the German state make meeting difficult in Nazi-occupied Denmark; both men know they are being watched, so finding private time to talk will be difficult. Heisenberg has been closely monitored by the Gestapo. Margrethe and Bohr debate whether they can invite Heisenberg to their house; he is German but also a “White Jew” (a person considered ethnically Aryan but who acts, according to the Nazi’s anti-Semitic theories, like a Jew) who has turned down offers from American universities because “he wants to be there to rebuild German science when Hitler goes” (9). Heisenberg’s presence has put Bohr into a difficult position, whereby a meeting would characterize him as a collaborator. But Bohr will take the meeting and, if they need to talk privately, they will take a walk outside together.
Heisenberg visits the Bohrs for dinner. Margrethe wonders whether Heisenberg wishes to talk to Bohr about fission, but Bohr dismisses the idea, believing that no one can or will develop a weapon based on such research. Heisenberg knocks on the door and Bohr answers; they greet each other like old friends. Margrethe notes that, “as soon as they catch sight of each other all their caution disappears” (11), and the two men try to overcome the awkwardness of the situation. They make small talk about families and missed opportunities to meet. Then they discuss the occupation. When the talk becomes slightly political, Margrethe intervenes and steers the conversation back to physics. When Heisenberg makes a social faux pas, Margrethe pities him, remembering the young man who first arrived in Copenhagen to study under her husband, “shy and arrogant and anxious to be loved” (13).
Bohr begins to talk about fission, but Heisenberg seems keen to change the subject. The couple detect his hesitance, and Bohr believes that Heisenberg cannot or will not talk about his work and that “the Nazis have systematically undermined theoretical physics” (14) because it is so commonly associated with Jewish scientists. Heisenberg notes that physics and politics are often difficult to separate. They discuss fellow physicists and friends they have in common. Heisenberg implies that his connections are helping to protect Bohr and that improved social connections could help protect him further. Insulted, Bohr asks whether Heisenberg has come to invite Bohr “to watch the deportation of [his] fellow-Danes from a grandstand set in the windows of the German Embassy” (16). Heisenberg apologizes. He is only trying to help. He wonders whether Bohr would like to take an evening stroll. Bohr worries that it is too cold. They reminisce about the first time they met, an incident the two men remember very differently, and Margrethe notices that the warmth between them has returned. They talk about their competitive natures, whether playing cards or table tennis or skiing. Heisenberg believes that Bohr’s skiing was “like [his] science” (18): slow and ponderous. Bohr says the same about Heisenberg, who is prone to not stopping to consider his work.
Act I, Pages 19-35 Summary
The discussion of skiing gives way to a discussion of particles and other scientists. The two struggle to agree on which scientist Bohr shot at with a cap gun many years ago; many of the scientists are now—like Schrodinger’s cat—“simultaneously alive and dead in our memories” (20). Heisenberg remembers how he met his wife; after meeting at a concert, they were married within three months. This compels the characters to think about their children, those who are alive and those who are dead. The memories become overwhelming, and Bohr brings up the idea of a stroll once again. The two men depart on a walk.
Margrethe knows that Bohr cannot resist Heisenberg’s discussions, comparing him to particles that behave differently when they are not being observed. Walking and talking have been cornerstones of the relationship between the two men. Margrethe expects them to be gone for hours, but they return after only 10 minutes. She is surprised further when Bohr announces that Heisenberg is about to leave. She senses that something terrible happened between the two men. Heisenberg thanks his hosts and apologizes in case he has “done or said anything that…” (22).
After Heisenberg leaves, Margrethe tries to extract what he said from Bohr. But Bohr insists that Heisenberg cannot have been right without saying what Heisenberg might have been right about. It quickly becomes clear that they had discussed fission and the ability to create an atomic bomb. While the exact content of their conversation remains unclear, many people later become interested in finding out those details. Heisenberg himself is keen to know when he returns to Copenhagen in 1947 to seek Bohr’s agreement on the matter they discussed in 1941. But in 1947, just as in 1941, both men quickly disagree with one another, to the point where they cannot even remember their route.
Post-mortem, Heisenberg believes that the subject of their discussion was clear: He asked Bohr whether a physicist “had the moral right to work on the practical exploitation of atomic energy” (25), but Bohr struggles to recall this. Both men agree, however, that Bohr was horrified. Slowly, they piece together the conversation: Heisenberg, forced to talk in vague abstracts for fear of being caught, was discussing making a nuclear reactor, but Bohr feared that the technology would be used in weapons. Heisenberg knew that it would be and had based all his work on an apparently throwaway insight from Bohr, reached in 1939. Bohr, horrified by what Heisenberg seems to have admitted, cut the walk short and they returned home. But Heisenberg insists that Bohr misread his intentions; in the following years, Bohr told many different people many mistruths about the conversation.
Bohr and Heisenberg agree to “start all over from the beginning” (26) and talk in plain language for Margrethe’s sake. Heisenberg reveals that his entire team of German nuclear physicists—men who considered Bohr their spiritual father—wanted Heisenberg to discuss their conundrum with Bohr. The men discuss what would have happened if Bohr had advised the team to stop working on the project; the Nazis would have arrested them and continued working on atomic energy regardless. Heisenberg suggests that—by continuing to work on the atomic project—he was draining the Nazis of time and resources, so that the project would be costly and long. He hoped that this would dissuade them.
The conversation moves to the American atomic research project, which in 1941 was not yet confirmed to exist. But, Heisenberg says, if any man in Europe would know that it existed, then it would be Bohr. Having risked his life to tell Bohr that a German atomic research program exists, Heisenberg hoped that Bohr would at least tell him if the Americans had an equivalent project. Heisenberg was worried for his country. Later, Oppenheimer regretted that the Americans “hadn’t produced the bomb in time to use on Germany” (29), but Bohr points out that the work on the bomb eventually tormented Oppenheimer. Heisenberg points out that the Americans were not dropping the bomb on Hitler but on “anyone who was in reach” (29), including old people, mothers, and children. Both sides feared that the other was working on the bomb and used this fear to justify their research.
Heisenberg’s hope was that the meeting between him and Bohr would lead to them convincing scientists on both sides to stop. Bohr was too angry at the idea of an atomic project to even listen. Heisenberg remembers how, after the fall of the Nazis, he was taken to a large estate in England and heard on the radio that the Americans had finally done the very thing that had tortured him for so long. By that time, Bohr himself was in America and had played a role in the project, though he claims that it was “very small” (31). Whereas Bohr was hailed as a genius and a good man, people—even those who worked on the American atomic project—refused to shake Heisenberg’s hand when he went to America in 1949.
In 1942, nine months after meeting Bohr, Heisenberg met with Hitler to decide the fate of the Nazi atomic project. Heisenberg asked for “so little that [Hitler] doesn’t take the program seriously” (32) and withheld certain parts of the research to prevent the development of bombs. Hitler agreed to the diminished funding, essentially killing the atomic bomb project in Nazi Germany. Heisenberg and his team continued to work on a reactor, however, but one that would never have properly worked and may even have melted down.
Bohr believes that Heisenberg became too obsessed with the project, but Heisenberg wonders whether this moment was the happiest in his life, when he did not have to worry about politics, only the science. Heisenberg’s obsession reminds Bohr, once again, of his dead son who drowned in a boating accident.
Bohr again asks Heisenberg why he was in Copenhagen in 1941. Heisenberg knew Bohr would not tell him about the Americans, that Bohr would not be able (or willing) to stop them, and that he would continue to work on his reactor anyway. They agree to go back to the start, to try and answer the question as though it is another draft of a scientific paper. Heisenberg remembers his happiness in reuniting with Bohr in 1941, and Margrethe sees Bohr and Heisenberg once again like a father and son.
Act I Analysis
With only three characters and a nonlinear plot, the play depends upon both its structure and its audience’s preexisting knowledge to have the greatest impact possible. Of the three characters, two (Heisenberg and Bohr) are renowned physicists. Occasionally, the two scientists wander far into technical discussion, including the finer details of nuclear fission that may leave laypeople feeling lost. Thankfully for the audience, Margrethe is there to provide an anchoring point for the conversation. Thus, Margrethe plays an important role. To counter the scientific intellect of the other two characters (which Margrethe is at times more than happy to match), Margrethe provides an emotional intelligence and a directness that ensures the narrative remains focused and on course. For instance, the play opens with her question, “but why?” (6), giving voice to the mystery that defines the meeting between Bohr and Heisenberg. She returns to this point intermittently throughout Act 1: Whenever her husband becomes too focused on the science or his emotions, she prompts him to tell her the real reason why he met with Heisenberg in 1941. As such, Margrethe functions as the audience’s aide throughout the play, ensuring that the discourse does not become too convoluted, too technical, or too disjointed.
However, the notion of a focused narrative is here somewhat absurd. The play’s setting is vague; now deceased, the three characters’ spirits come together to establish some semblance of truth about an important moment in their lives. They might be in heaven, hell, purgatory, or some other kind of limbo. The reason for their reunion is kept purposefully vague, allowing the discussion over their past motivations to take center stage. Even once the premise is established, the narrative weaves through time. The verb tenses change frequently; characters discuss their current reality, the meeting in 1941, numerous other meetings, and events at which only one of them was present as though they are contemporary. Even something so simple as a walk shared by Bohr and Heisenberg can be any one of a number of walks the two men shared across a number of decades, and all are discussed in the present tense. This gives the play a dreamlike quality: Events come and go before the characters, who instantly inhabit and occupy their own memories. The timeline is not chronological but instead occurs all at once. The characters are locked inside a physics-based conundrum, in which time no longer functions as a single, logical vector. It can be chopped up, expanded, looped, and ignored entirely. For characters who are so intricately linked to the modern understanding of physics, the play’s twisted treatment of such a fundamental dimension as time is deeply ironic.
But this irony is only possible because of the audience’s prior knowledge of historical events. Many lines in the play contain fragments of information that are not expanded upon. Names of famous scientists are mentioned, the war is referenced, and the ultimate fate of that conflict is assumed to be known by the audience. As such, the play’s conceit becomes impossible without at least a large degree of dramatic irony being employed. The play requires the audience’s knowledge of events to be effective. For instance, Heisenberg frequently refers to his worry that the Americans might drop an atomic bomb on Germany and thus tries to prompt Bohr into revealing the existence of the American atomic project. This was unknown (or at least unconfirmed) to Heisenberg at the time, but an informed audience will be aware of the Manhattan Project and will know that the Americans did indeed drop two atomic bombs on Japan. Thus, the audience knows that Heisenberg’s fears are well founded. This changes the nature of his motivations, turning them from morally complicit paranoia into informed estimates of an enemy’s actions. But this characterization is not possible without preexisting knowledge. This interplay between external context and the narrative’s internal plot becomes an important part of the play as a whole, which describes a historical moment but requires knowledge of this moment to be understood.
