Biography 1: An Electrifying Legacy: The Long Life of the Oliven Plan

Abstract

Although Oskar Oliven (born 1870, Breslau) died in 1939, he continues to live on in several ways. For one, he is immortalized in the Dr Oskar Oliven Memorial Scholarship, established in 2003 by his son Gerald and his wife Hedy at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Tel Aviv, Israel. For another, his name repeatedly surfaces in processes of building a European electricity network throughout the twentieth century. That latter legacy dates back to November 1930, when he unveiled a plan for a European electricity system. His ideas were not only about increasing system efficiency. A European system was also connected to peace and prosperity under the aegis of European cooperation. While his plan is relatively well known among historians, the memory of Oliven and his plan has also been frequently invoked by engineers of successive generations, nearly always at moments of important changes in the European electricity network.