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  • A German Rocket Team at Woomera? A lost opportunity for Australia

    Paper ID

    IAC_03_IAA_2_4_b_03

    author

    • Kerrie Dougherty

    company

    Powerhouse Museum

    country

    Australia

    year

    2003

    abstract

    In late 1946 the Australian government formalised its attempts to acquire post-war German scientific and technical expertise with the establishment of the Employment of Scientific and Technical Enemy Aliens (ESTEA) scheme. Under this scheme, between 1946 and 1954 some 150 scientists, engineers and technicians were recruited to work in Australia, although several thousand candidates were actually under consideration. Among those who sought employment in Australia under this program was Austrian-born rocket pioneer Eugen Sanger, his long-time colleague and future wife Irene Bredt and several others who had been, to a greater or lesser extent, involved in wartime rocket development in Germany. With the establishment of the Anglo-Australian Joint Project for long range missile development in 1946 and the opening of the Woomera Rocket Range in 1947, the prospect of enhancing the expertise-base within the Long Range Weapons Establishment by the acquisition of a team of experienced German researchers should have been appealing to the Australian Government: yet the 1949 applications by Sanger and the others were eventually rejected in 1951. This paper will outline the story of the now-forgotten attempts by Sanger and other personnel associated with the German rocket program to migrate to Australia under the ESTEA scheme. It will look at the background and operation of the ESTEA program and consider in detail the case of Sanger et al., examining both the reasons that may have prompted them to apply for work in Australia in the first instance and the possible reasons their ultimate rejection.