Sep 30, 2026 · 42 min · 10 segments
In the aftermath of World War II, a charismatic Estonian man named Ilmar Tammelo arrived in Australia as one of more than 170,000 in the Displaced Persons Scheme. Trained as a lawyer and shaped by the…
It was the largest wave of non-British migration the country had seen since federation and the start of populate or perish, a policy that aimed to build the population, shoring up defense and industry.
But even amid the upheaval and desperate need left by the war, Australia was choosing migrants strictly on its own terms.
In this episode, we meet one of them, an Estonian lawyer turned forestry worker who eventually made his way into the legal academy and helped challenge the thinking of Australian lawyers and legal scholars.
His philosophical abstract speculations were always a little bit beyond me, and it was a prevailing belief system, but it was also a prevailing mood.
One of his published works begins with the words, "All day I have been troubled by a nameless anxiety." No, I can't pin him down.
He spoke 11 languages fluently.
Ilmar Tammelo was born in Estonia in 1917, and in his early adult life, he lived through its invasion and occupation by Soviet forces, then the Nazi German regime.
They wanted to get an insight into the thinking of the leaders of the Soviet Union, and the way to do that was Ilmar Tammelo's huge collection of speeches.
This is pre-internet days, so this isn't something he could press a button and get them to appear.
He had somehow brought them out to Australia, and he translated them all.
It was a huge file.
[upbeat music]
He was part of the Displaced Persons scheme, an international response to the huge numbers of people displaced by World War II.
Yeah, he was a mysterious figure.
[laughs] I was attracted to him, but I never spoke to him, and from my memory, he gave a couple of lectures on abductive reasoning, and he'd written a book on that, which I never understood.
[laughs]
He was bald.
My hair had started to recede when I was 17, and in 1963, Ilmar went overseas on a sabbatical, and when he came back, he'd got a toupee, and I was bitterly disappointed and disillusioned and felt that he had betrayed us.
It was the largest wave of non-British migration the country had seen since federation and the start of populate or perish, a policy that aimed to build the population, shoring up defense and industry.
But even amid the upheaval and desperate need left by the war, Australia was choosing migrants strictly on its own terms.
In this episode, we meet one of them, an Estonian lawyer turned forestry worker who eventually made his way into the legal academy and helped challenge the thinking of Australian lawyers and legal scholars.
His philosophical abstract speculations were always a little bit beyond me, and it was a prevailing belief system, but it was also a prevailing mood.
One of his published works begins with the words, "All day I have been troubled by a nameless anxiety." No, I can't pin him down.
He spoke 11 languages fluently.
Ilmar Tammelo was born in Estonia in 1917, and in his early adult life, he lived through its invasion and occupation by Soviet forces, then the Nazi German regime.
They wanted to get an insight into the thinking of the leaders of the Soviet Union, and the way to do that was Ilmar Tammelo's huge collection of speeches.
This is pre-internet days, so this isn't something he could press a button and get them to appear.
He had somehow brought them out to Australia, and he translated them all.
It was a huge file.
[upbeat music]
He was part of the Displaced Persons scheme, an international response to the huge numbers of people displaced by World War II.
Yeah, he was a mysterious figure.
[laughs] I was attracted to him, but I never spoke to him, and from my memory, he gave a couple of lectures on abductive reasoning, and he'd written a book on that, which I never understood.
[laughs]
He was bald.
My hair had started to recede when I was 17, and in 1963, Ilmar went overseas on a sabbatical, and when he came back, he'd got a toupee, and I was bitterly disappointed and disillusioned and felt that he had betrayed us.
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