Historians' misunderstandings of Copenhagen
Matthias Dörries
Université Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg
doerries@isis.u-strasbg.fr
(Paper given in Copenhagen on September 2001 at the conference
"Copenhagen and beyond: Drama meets history of science")

Abstract: What do historians talk about – and what don't they – when discussing Michael Frayn's Copenhagen? Their choices tell us more about the discipline of history of science than about the play. I will focus on what historians have either neglected or deliberately left out, trying to identify the moments when historians think they are leaving the safe ground of familiar ways of doing history of science.

To some historians, 'Copenhagen' was alarmingly false and one-sided; to some it was amusing, but incorrect; to others it was an inspiration. It seemed to me worthwhile to collect and confront these different reactions, and to confront them with each other, as I did in the German edition of Frayn's 'Copenhagen' published with commentaries by twelve historians of science, some of whom are here today, by Wallstein Verlag.

I want to talk about historians' misunderstandings of 'Copenhagen'.
Why "misunderstandings"? Because I think that historians may all too easily take the play as yet another written source. Historians often shy away from literature. This is not surprising. Why shouldn't they? After all, to be simplistic: Literature could be regarded as nothing more than fiction and historians are exclusively interested in facts and actual events - aren't we?

If so, there would be indeed very little to say to each other. And, obviously, there is a tension, when historians and fiction writers meet. And the tension in this case became even stronger, when Michael Frayn wrote - wisely or unwisely, I leave it up to you - a postscript to the play, putting his foot into the sacred territory of history.

How to deal with such an intruder? This question also applies to myself, as I am a historian and historian of science.

What do historians talk about - and what don't they - when discussing 'Copenhagen'? The contributors to the volume were free to talk about anything connected with the play. Their choices tell us a great deal about the discipline of history of science - and perhaps less about the play.

In what follows I would like to discuss what historians have either neglected or deliberately left out. I will end with some remarks on what they do talk about.

Let me start with two examples of what historians of science do not talk about:

1. Margrethe Bohr

None of the contributors discussing the play chose to look more closely at either the historical Margrethe, or at the character "Margrethe" in the play.

This seems odd for two reasons:

First, the historical Margrethe is most likely to have been the person best informed about the meeting between Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg and their relationship. And even if one might object that there are only few sources about her, why are these - or at least the fact that there as so few - not taken into consideration?

The second point concerns Frayn's character of Margrethe in the play. I am sorry to say this to all the Heisenberg and Bohr specialists present here, but, having seen the play several times and under different directors, I have come to the conclusion that Margrethe is the most important figure in the play. What I mean is that the performances of the play succeed or fail with her role. A weaker Bohr or Heisenberg do not destroy the play, but a weaker Margrethe makes the play completely flat. Why?

Because Margrethe serves two dramatic functions. She is Bohr's wife and typist, Heisenberg's former friend. But she is also us, the public, the historians. She is constantly judging, taking sides, making guesses, analysing reactions... If she is weak, Niels and Werner take over, playing out their game; if she is strong, she puts them on the spot, dissecting every single word they say, either simply by her mere presence or by commenting upon it. If she is strong, she will bring out Heisenberg's contradictions, if she is weak, Heisenberg will appear more convincing. For example:

H. I didn't build the bomb

M. No, and why didn't you? I'll tell you that, too. It's the simplest reason of all. Because you couldn't. You didn't understand the physics.

and then she starts to ask a series of inquisitory questions.

The public finds itself mirrored in her and is forced to react critically not only to Heisenberg and Bohr, but also to Margrethe's commentary and analysis. Margrethe's role is twofold here: on the one hand she is a character in the play, on the other she plays the part of the chorus in Greek drama.

2. What else do historians do not talk about?

Misunderstandings.
Historians like to go to the core of texts, to understand their meaning fully. But once having understood the text, they may fall into the error that the text must have been understood in exactly that way by a historical figure some - let's say - fifty years earlier. What if misunderstandings might have taken place? To trace misunderstandings, or partial understandings, represents some of the hardest work we as historians have to do.

I think that Michael Frayn's work draws attention to this. Having read some of his other works, such as the novel 'Headlong' or his 'Copenhagen Papers', I would claim that Michael Frayn is fascinated by how easy it is to be wrong. Both of these books are comedies of errors.

Look at the 'Copenhagen Papers'. What is the story here? Shortly after the play's opening in London, Frayn starts receiving documents apparently from Farm Hall (where the German physicists had been incarcerated in 1945); among them German instructions for how to set up a ping-pong table mixed with references to U235. Frayn is torn for a long time whether the papers are true or not; the very unlikeliness of the content, he thinks, could be an argument in favor of its truthfulness. Only slowly does he come to realise that one of the actors in the London play had played a practical joke on him. Now knowing, he tries to strike back, by pretending not to know the actor's deception.

When reading the 'Copenhagen Papers' you cannot know with absolute certainty whether you are dealing with fiction here or whether it indeed happened. Did Michael Frayn indeed fall victim to false documents about Farm Hall, or is it a good story to trap the reader into believing that Michael Frayn believed in the false papers? Who is betraying whom? The book pretends to be history, but might only be fiction. (Would we even believe Frayn if he told us one or the other now?)

Frayn's favorite theme is the mirror relationship of deception and self-deception. This explains also Frayn's interest in spy-stories, double agents, and cons, an interest he shares with Thomas Powers.
Nothing is more amusing than when you know more than others. And, it is even easier to be wrong, when you think the other one is not telling the truth. And here we have some eternal topics of human literature: deceit, falsity ... and loss of certainty and orientation.

There is irony in Frayn's work in the sense that he creates situations where one person knows more than another, so that the other person can look quite stupid. He wants to get readers or theatre-goers to think that they know best, that they have the panoptic vision, only then to pull the rug out from under, to tell them that they not only don't but can't know. Perhaps this playfulness is too much for us serious historians, who are looking for a safe anchor, a fixed point of reference.

Frayn's work thus makes us constantly aware that apparently simple stories we tell may be too simple, leaving out nuances, deceits, misunderstandings. He points to the limited scope of our mostly written sources. As historians we are in a dilemma here, because most often we cannot see our figures speaking, we cannot truly catch their tone. The same sentence differently pronounced, or uttered in different dialogues, might imply opposite meanings. I fear that quite often we do not catch irony, double meanings.

Finally, then: What do historians like to talk about:
Michael Frayn's agenda

Does Michael Frayn have an agenda? Is his play a coded message?

Some historians think so. Why? Because that's what we do all the time: we search for causes, explanations, motivations.

However, once again I would ask for caution: Can we apply our methods to a literary work? The play 'Copenhagen' is not Michael Frayn. Though I assume Michael Frayn feels responsible for it, the text can point to things that Frayn has not thought about and even might not wish to imply. And because it is a play, it is only raw material for the stage, where it finds further interpretation.

As historians we specialise in interpreting texts, but good literary texts and especially plays offer many layers of possible interpretations. To attribute definitive meanings to certain passages of the text may miss the point that even these passages are still part of a larger whole and interpretative scheme, and cannot be seen dissociated from them.

It is only finally in the theatre that we can make up our minds; and of the several interpretations I have seen I always came out with a different view of the event and of the play. This then is the final irony of 'Copenhagen': On stage the play escapes even Frayn's grip. He too is reduced to a helpless bystander. Whatever he might think he wants us to think, in the end Margrethe and Niels Bohr, and Werner Heisenberg, and we, are out of his control.