{"id":90400,"date":"2026-05-23T07:58:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T07:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/90400\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T07:58:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T07:58:12","slug":"copenhagen-in-jerusalem-revisits-nazi-era-meeting-that-shaped-the-nuclear-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/90400\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Copenhagen\u2019 in Jerusalem revisits Nazi-era meeting that shaped the nuclear age"},"content":{"rendered":"

A mysterious meeting in Nazi-occupied Denmark<\/a> in the fall of 1941 between two of the world\u2019s most prominent physicists, Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr, is the setting for the play Copenhagen, which will be presented by the Ben Bard Players at the Khan Theatre in Jerusalem, May 27-28, and June 2-4, 10, and 11. Copenhagen is produced and directed by Barak Bard and stars David Golinkin as Heisenberg, Yehoshua Looks as Bohr, and Miriam Metzinger as Bohr\u2019s wife, Margrethe. The Broadway version of the play received the Tony Award for Best Play in 2000.<\/p>\n

Werner Heisenberg was one of Germany\u2019s leading theoretical physicists and the person who pioneered quantum mechanics. He also formulated the uncertainty principle, which states that in the world of atoms and particles, one cannot know both a particle\u2019s exact position and its exact speed (or momentum) at the same time with perfect accuracy.<\/p>\n

Niels Bohr was a Jew and a pioneering Danish physicist who mentored Heisenberg in the 1920s and received the Nobel Prize in Physics<\/a> in 1922. Like Bohr, Heisenberg was a Nobel laureate, having received the prize in 1932 for his work in quantum mechanics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 1939, Germany began its research into the development of nuclear weapons, and Heisenberg participated in this research. In April 1940, Nazi Germany conquered and occupied Denmark.<\/p>\n

Bohr was then living in Copenhagen with his wife and family.<\/p>\n

\"BustBust of Bohr in Copenhagen, Denmark (credit: SHUTTERSTOCK)<\/p>\n

In September 1941, Nazi Germany was at the peak of its strength, controlling most of continental Europe and rapidly advancing through the Soviet Union. The Germans had begun the siege of Leningrad in early September, capturing Kyiv later that month.<\/p>\n

On September 30, the Wehrmacht began Operation Typhoon, its offensive to capture Moscow.<\/p>\n

Heisenberg traveled from his home in Leipzig to visit Bohr and met with him some time during the week of September 15-21. There is no record of what they discussed; later, both parties expressed divergent opinions about what was said.<\/p>\n

After World War II, Heisenberg said that he had asked Bohr whether physicists had \u201cthe moral right to work on the practical exploitation of atomic energy\u201d and that he had formulated a plan to prevent the development of atomic weapons through a mutual agreement between German and Allied scientists.<\/p>\n

Bohr died in 1962, and his recollections of the meeting were not revealed until 2002, when his family published the contents of 11 letters that he had written on the subject.<\/p>\n

In the letters, which he did not send to Heisenberg, Bohr wrote that Heisenberg was working on developing an atomic bomb for Germany and had come to Copenhagen to tell the Danes to cooperate with the Germans, since the Germans were going to win the war.<\/p>\n

Copenhagen is a fictional account of what may have been discussed and addresses the reasons for Heisenberg\u2019s meeting with Bohr in Copenhagen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Heisenberg,Heisenberg, played by David Golinkin (L), is greeted by Niels Bohr, played by Yehoshua Looks, with Bohr\u2019s wife, Margarethe, played by Miriam Metzinger. (credit: Ben Bard Players)<\/p>\n

In the play, Heisenberg, Bohr, and Margarethe are already dead, and looking back on that day, they discuss why Heisenberg went to Copenhagen.<\/p>\n

One possible subject of the meeting, raised in the play, is Heisenberg\u2019s supposed moral quandary: Does a physicist have a moral right to work on applications of atomic energy? Another possible reason given for his visit was to ask Bohr if he knew whether the United States<\/a> was working on a nuclear bomb.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After exchanging pleasantries and having dinner with Margrethe, the two physicists go for a stroll in a nearby park but return abruptly, after which Heisenberg leaves. Bohr is clearly disturbed about the nature of their conversation.\u00a0
The play reveals all the different theories of the visit, beginning each version with Heisenberg approaching the door, ringing the bell, and greeting Bohr and his wife before discussing the reasons for his trip.<\/p>\n

The play is faithful to the storyline of the 2002 television version of Copenhagen, starring Stephen Rea, Daniel Craig, and Francesca Annis. Actors Golinkin, Looks, and Metzinger delivered their lines convincingly, lending the production authenticity and emotional weight. History buffs, fans of psychological drama, and anyone interested in the moral questions of scientific discovery will undoubtedly enjoy it.<\/p>\n

Neil Bohr’s escape to Sweden<\/p>\n

One interesting historical fact not part of the play is the escape of Bohr and his wife to Sweden by sea two years later, in September 1943, with the aid of the Danish resistance.<\/p>\n

The Nazis had targeted Bohr, and after arriving in Sweden<\/a>, he appealed to King Gustav V to publicly announce that Sweden was prepared to offer asylum to Jewish refugees. On October 2, Swedish radio broadcast the announcement, and 7,000 Jews eventually escaped to the Swedish kingdom.<\/p>\n

In Jerusalem conducted interviews with the play\u2019s principals via Zoom. \u201cOne of the central questions that the play is exploring is the natural urge of science to rush forward to be able to discover whatever can be discovered, and finding out that one has walked into a territory where all of a sudden you\u2019ve opened the Pandora\u2019s box of destructivity,\u201d Yehoshua Looks, who plays Neils Bohr, said.<\/p>\n

A great deal of the tension between the two in the play\u2019s meeting is the matter of the trust, or lack of it, between the Germans and the US, he said. \u201cIf Germany gets the bomb, America has to have the bomb. Heisenberg suggests to Bohr that if each party would tell the other that they would not create a bomb, then everything would be fine because no one would have nuclear weapons. But, as he said, \u201cno one trusts the other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looks pointed out that Bohr himself was morally conflicted. After he escaped to Sweden, he eventually went to Los Alamos, New Mexico, where he worked on the development of the atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki.\u00a0
\u201cHe says to Heisenberg, \u2018You didn\u2019t kill a single human being your entire life, and I am responsible for the deaths of over 100,000 people.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

David Golinkin, who plays Heisenberg, said that throughout the play, his character is very apologetic. \u201cHe\u2019s saying, \u2018I have no evil intentions. I strung the Nazis along. I made sure they were researching a nuclear reactor, but I didn\u2019t tell Albert Speer [minister of Armaments and War Production in Nazi Germany] that we could produce plutonium.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cHe keeps saying that he did not want the Nazis to have a nuclear weapon. His intention was not to give Hitler a nuclear weapon and so on. I have no idea whether it\u2019s true or not, but that\u2019s the way he appears in the play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miriam Metzinger, who plays Bohr\u2019s wife, Margrethe, said that her role in the play is primarily as the defender of her husband.<\/p>\n

Referring to her role, she said, \u201cEven though I\u2019m an intelligent woman, I\u2019m not a scientist, and so I feel shut out. My role is to be Bohr\u2019s defender, and I\u2019m there to prop him up when he sometimes thinks he was responsible for the deaths of all these people [in Nagasaki].\u201d<\/p>\n

Margarethe\u2019s function in the play is also to explain the arguments and discussions on the technical aspects of nuclear power in an accessible, easily understood language.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that I\u2019m there for the audience,\u201d she said, \u201cbecause it simplifies the science. They have to break it down in terms that people can understand. Plus, I think she represents the audience\u2019s mistrust of Heisenberg, given how we feel about people working for the Nazis at that time.<\/p>\n

\u201cMargarethe is very, very aggressive towards Heisenberg, and I feel the audience is probably biased against Heisenberg. So I think that the fact that Heisenberg seems sympathetic in the play despite all of that is a testament to a very balanced playwright.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eighty-five years after Heisenberg and Bohr met, the world is still grappling with the issue of nuclear weapons. The concern over Iran\u2019s nuclear ambitions and the search for its enriched uranium has been the focus of news headlines for many months, and is especially pertinent in this country. Even Iran\u2019s suggestion that its development of nuclear power was for peaceful purposes is echoed in the play when Heisenberg says that the German development of a nuclear reactor was for peaceful use.<\/p>\n

Should Copenhagen be considered a historical drama or a contemporary warning about the usage of nuclear weapons? All the play\u2019s principles agreed that it addresses both issues. \u201cWe grew up with the fear of the world being destroyed during the Cold War,\u201d Metzinger said, explaining that the fear was \u201chappening again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the reasons this play is so relevant,\u201d Golinkin said, \u201cis that in recent years, Trump and everybody else talks about \u2018fake news.\u2019 And, of course, with AI, you can easily create fake news.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that 50 or 100 years ago, people thought they could write objective history. Today, many historians say you can\u2019t write objective history: Everybody who writes affects the history that they are writing and portrays the events differently,\u201d Golinkin said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople rewrite history all the time, and this play very cleverly keeps rewriting the same scenes over and over again. There really is an uncertainty, the final core of uncertainty at the heart of things, which is in everything we remember and all the history that we write. So I think that\u2019s a very important theme in the play, and I think that it\u2019s true,\u201d Golinkin noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best way to describe this play is \u2018thought-provoking.\u2019 And that\u2019s what it does each time you read it and each time you perform it,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A mysterious meeting in Nazi-occupied Denmark in the fall of 1941 between two of the world\u2019s most prominent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[6],"tags":[108,26,190,1193,9929,6958,238,4347,10892],"class_list":["post-90400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-copenhagen","tag-copenhagen","tag-denmark","tag-germany","tag-history","tag-nazi","tag-physics","tag-russia","tag-science","tag-world-war-ii"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116622832964465223","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}