The new fields of atomic and nuclear science represented a weapon of immense power which, following 1945, became the key to military and economic activity precipitating the post-war arms race. Antipodean Australia was not unaffected by these advances in scientific knowledge. The Australian government, impressed by the technological changes elsewhere in the world and confident in the belief that the nature of science was universal, participated in what was, in effect, a hunt for German scientists. During the Cold War period 1949/52, approximately 145 German scientists and engineers were brought to Australia under the ‘Employment of Scientific and Technical Enemy Aliens’ (ESTEA) scheme. Their arrival and subsequent activities were given minimum publicity and it took 46 years before application for access to the closed files, of what was quite an elaborate Commonwealth government project, was successful.