Nicholas Kollerstrom

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Nicholas Kollerstrom
Born1946 (age 77–78)
Education
conspiracism, historical negationism[1]
Websitehttps://terroronthetube.co.uk/

Nicholas Kollerstrom (born 1946) is an English historian of science and author who is known for the promotion of Holocaust denial and other conspiracy theories.[2][3] Formerly an honorary research fellow in The Department for Science and Technology Studies (STS) at University College London (UCL), he is the author of several books, including Gardening and Planting by the Moon (an annual series beginning in 1980), Newton's Forgotten Lunar Theory (2000), Crop Circles (2002), and Terror on the Tube (2009). He has also written entries for the Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers.

Kollerstrom has been involved in a variety of issues as a political activist. In 1986 he co-founded the Belgrano Action Group after the sinking of the ARA General Belgrano by the Royal Navy during the Falklands War, and from 2006 he argued that the 7 July 2005 London bombings were not carried out by the men accused of them. UCL withdrew his fellowship in 2008 in response to his views about the Auschwitz concentration camp, which he posted on a Holocaust-denial website.[4][5][6][7]

Education and career

Kollerstrom studied

plant growth (known as lunar gardening), he worked on a biodynamic farm in the 1970s,[12] and his Gardening and Planting by the Moon (1980) was the first of an annual series.[13] This was followed by Lead on the Brain (1982), with a preface by Paul Ekins,[14] then Astrochemistry: A Study of Metal–Planet Affinities (1984), which examined astrochemistry and plant growth.[15]

In 1990, Kollerstrom was elected a

crop circles was published, Crop Circles: The Hidden Form.[20]

In 1999 he received a grant from the Royal Astronomical Society to work on the classification of correspondence related to the discovery of Neptune. He and his co-authors concluded in Scientific American in 2004 that the British had wrongly taken credit for it.[21]

Activism

Overview

Kollerstrom was active in political campaigns in the UK throughout the 1980s. In 1985 he co-founded the London Nuclear Warfare Tribunal, which sought to question the legality of nuclear weapons.[22] The following year, he became a founding member of the Belgrano Action Group, set up in protest at the sinking of the Argentine ship the ARA General Belgrano by the Royal Navy during the 1982 Falklands War. The group held an informal public inquiry in November 1986 at Hampstead Town Hall, addressed by Tam Dalyell and Clive Ponting, among others.[23] In 1989 Kollerstrom stood as a Green Party candidate for East Guildford in the Surrey County Council election.[24]

In August 2002, in the run-up to the 2003

David Shayler supporting a fringe conspiracy theory that the men accused of the 7 July 2005 London bombings had not carried out the attack.[6] According to the BBC, Kollerstrom found that the Luton–London train on which the bombers were at first said to have travelled had been cancelled, which led the government to correct the official account of the men's movements.[26] The police said the correction had come from them.[27] Kollerstrom's book Terror on the Tube: Behind the Veil of 7/7, An Investigation was published in 2009, and he was interviewed that year for the BBC series The Conspiracy Files.[28]

Holocaust denial

Further information: Holocaust denial and Evidence and documentation for the Holocaust

In 2007, on the website of the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH), a Holocaust-denial group, Kollerstrom argued for a fringe view that the gas chambers in the Auschwitz concentration camp had been used for disinfection purposes only and that only one million Jews died in the war.[29][1][5] First proposed by the French fascist writer Maurice Bardèche in 1947, this position has no support among historians.[30] In March 2008, a second article of his on the CODOH site alleged that Auschwitz had had art classes, a well-stocked library for inmates, and an elegant swimming pool where inmates would sunbathe on weekends while watching water polo.[31][1] David Aaronovitch called this "one of the most jaw-dropping pieces of insulting stupidity" he had ever seen.[6] UCL removed Kollerstrom's honorary fellowship in April 2008 when the articles were brought to its attention.[4][7]

Responding to the loss of his fellowship, Kollerstrom said he had been accused of "thought crime"; he had no interest, he said, in Nazism and had always belonged to progressive groups such as the

Scholars for 9/11 Truth.[34][35] It was one of several Holocaust-denial books removed from sale by Amazon in 2017.[36]

Later writing and activism

Kollerstrom's The Life and Death of Paul McCartney 1942–1966: A Very English Mystery (2015) supported the "

crank magnetism".[1]

Together with Ian Fantom, a

7/7 conspiracy theory work as "vital".[42] Kollerstrom has also attended meetings of the far-right London Forum.[43]

Selected works

Books

Articles

Notes

  1. ^ Cambridge University Reporter: Kollerstrom matriculated in Michaelmas Term 1965 at Corpus Christi College. He was awarded a BA on 21 June 1968 and an MA on 20 October 1973.[8] (At Cambridge a BA may become an MA without examination at least six years from the end of the first term of residence and two years after graduation.)
  2. ^ "We thank Nick Kollerstrom for making many of the measurements and also Professor P. J. Lawther, formerly Director of the Medical Research Council's Air Pollution Unit at St. Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College, where this work was largely done ..."[10]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Nicholas Terry (2017). "Holocaust denial in the age of web 2.0: negationist discourse since the Irving–Lipstadt trial", in Paul Behrens, Olaf Jensen, and Nicholas Terry (eds.), Holocaust and Genocide Denial: A Contextual Perspective, Abingdon: Routledge (pp. 34–54), pp. 48–49.
  2. ^ a b Jonathan Ames; Frances Gibb (8 February 2017). "Disgraced lawyer was connected to Holocaust denier". The Sunday Times.
  3. ^ a b Graham Macklin (2015). "The 'cultic milieu' of Britain's 'New Right': meta-political 'fascism' in contemporary Britain", in Nigel Copsey and John E. Richardson (eds.), Cultures of Post-War British Fascism, Abingdon: Routledge (pp. 177–201), p. 190.
  4. ^ a b "Dr Nicholas Kollerstrom", UCL News, 22 April 2008.
  5. ^ a b c Daniella Peled (24 April 2008). "College rejects Shoah denier", The Jewish Chronicle.
  6. ^ a b c Aaronovitch, David (1 May 2008). "Red and green meet brownshirts". The Jewish Chronicle. Archived from the original on 21 March 2012. Also see David Aaronovitch (2011). Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History, London: Riverhead Books, p. 12.
  7. ^ a b Nick Cohen (4 May 2008). "When academics lose their power of reason", The Observer.
  8. ^ Cambridge University Reporter, Class Lists.
  9. ^ Nick Kollerstrom (1982). Lead on the Brain: A Plain Guide to Britain's No. 1 Pollutant, London: Wildwood House, back cover.
  10. PMID 6732055.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of January 2024 (link
    )
  11. ^ For physics teacher, Lead on the Brain, back cover, and "Nick Kollerstrom", Foulsham Publishing. Retrieved 26 November 2009.

    For mathematics teacher, Nick Kollerstrom (2002). Crop Circles: The Hidden Form, Salisbury: Wessex Books, back cover.

  12. ^ a b Elspeth Thompson (31 February 2000). "Urban Gardener", The Sunday Telegraph magazine.
  13. ^ Nicholas Kollerstrom (1980). Gardening and Planting by the Moon, W. Foulsham & Co. Ltd., annual series from 1980 to the present.
    Ken Thompson (31 January 2012). "Moon planting: just a passing phase", The Daily Telegraph.

    John Manley (1 April 2017). "The Casual Gardener: Biodynamics – planting by the light of the moon", The Irish News.

  14. ^ Mick Duggan (3 February 1983). "Is it safe to breathe?", New Scientist.
  15. ^ Egil Asprem (2014). The Problem of Disenchantment: Scientific Naturalism and Esoteric Discourse 1900–1939, Boston: Brill Publishers, p. 490, n. 29.

    For a summary of a 1983 article by Kollerstrom on astrochemistry, see John T. Burns (1997). Cosmic Influences on Humans, Animals, and Plants: An Annotated Bibliography, Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press, p. 120.

  16. ^ a b "Nicholas Kollerstrom". Department of Science and Technology Studies, University College London. January 1998. Archived from the original on 12 November 1999.

    "Staff". Department of Science and Technology Studies, University College London. January 1999. Archived from the original on 17 November 1999.

  17. ^ "The Achievement of Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' of 1702", eThOS.
  18. JSTOR 10.1086/498778
  19. PMID 10661389

    Nicholas Kollerstrom and Beverly Steffert (10 December 2003). "Sex difference in response to stress by lunar month: A pilot study of four years' crisis-call frequency", BMC Psychiatry, 3(20).

    PMID 14664724

  20. ^ Julie Gibbon (2013). "Crop Circles: The Hidden Form". Association of Teachers of Mathematics. Archived from the original on 2 September 2013.
  21. PMID 15597985
    Christine McGourty (10 April 2003). "Lost letters' Neptune revelations", BBC News.
    Robin McKie (12 December 2004). "Revealed: how Britain put the spin on Neptune", The Observer.

    Mario Livio (7 August 2013). "Who Predicted the Existence of the Planet Neptune?", The Huffington Post.

  22. ^ Geoffrey Darnton (ed.) (1989). The Bomb and the Law, The Alva and Gunnar Myrdal Foundation, Stockholm; "Convenors", London Nuclear Warfare Tribunal.
  23. ^ New Statesman, 112, 1986, p. 43; Nicholas Kollerstrom and George Farebrother (eds.) (22 October 1987). The Unnecessary War: Proceedings of the Belgrano Inquiry, November 7/8th 1986, The Belgrano Action Group, Nottingham: Spokesman Books.
  24. ^ Election results, Surrey Advertiser, 12 May 1989.
  25. ^ "Legal Inquiry Steering Group". war.inquiry.freeuk.com. Archived from the original on 27 August 2017.

    George Farebrother and Nicholas Kollerstrom (eds.) (2003). The Case against War: The Essential Legal Inquiries, Opinions and Judgements Concerning War in Iraq, The Legal Inquiry Steering Group, Nottingham: Spokesman Books, pp. 5–6, 268, 283.

    ISBN 0851246923 Available here
    .

  26. ^ The Conspiracy Files: 7/7, BBC Two, 30 June 2009, from 00:17:00; John Reid (Home Secretary), Hansard, 11 July 2006: Column 1307.
  27. ^ "Reid reveals 7 July account error", BBC News, 11 July 2006.
  28. ^ Robert Mendick and Jonny Paul (10 June 2008). "7/7 was an MI5 plot, Holocaust denier claims in BBC film", London Evening Standard.

    Nicole Martin (10 June 2008). "BBC pays disgraced academic expenses for part in 7/7 bombings documentary". The Daily Telegraph.

  29. ^ Nick Kollerstrom (2007). "The Auschwitz 'Gas Chamber' Illusion". Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust. Archived from the original on 24 June 2007.
  30. ^ Deborah E. Lipstadt (1993). Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, Plume, p. 50 for Bardèche, p. 225ff for the disinfection claim.

    Michael Gray (2015). Teaching the Holocaust, Routledge, p. 106.

  31. ^ Nick Kollerstrom (March 2008). "School Trips to Auschwitz" (PDF). Smith's Report on the Holocaust Controversy. Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust. pp. 3–4. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 January 2009.
  32. ^ Martin Bright (20 May 2008). "Why do we tolerate Press TV?", New Statesman.
  33. JSTOR 10.1086/653858
  34. ^ Oliver Kamm (11 December 2014). "'Respectable' revisionists", The Jewish Chronicle. For Castle Hill, also see Stephen E. Atkins (2009). Holocaust Denial as an International Movement, ABC-CLIO, p. 113.
  35. ^ "Covid sceptic Sir Desmond Swayne in new storm for being on 'anti-Semitic' internet talk show". inews.co.uk. 28 January 2021. Retrieved 29 January 2021.
  36. ^ Stephanie Courouble (9 March 2017). "Why Does Amazon Sell Holocaust-Denying Authors Next To Real Historians?", The Huffington Post.
  37. ^ Nick Kollerstrom (2015).The Life and Death of Paul McCartney 1942–1966: A Very English Mystery, Moon Rock Books.
  38. ^ Nick Kollerstrom (2017). Chronicles of False Flag Terror, Moon Rock Books.
  39. ^ Mark Townsend (22 February 2020). "UK left activists attended events with far right antisemites". The Observer.
  40. ^ Dave Rich and Joe Mulhall. "Inside Keep Talking" (PDF). CST. Hope not Hate and Community Security Trust. Archived (PDF) from the original on 10 March 2020.
  41. ^ Brigit Grant (11 November 2020). "Six events with a Holocaust denier pulled after pressure from anti-racism group". Jewish News.

    Lee Harpin (16 April 2019). "Emails reveal row within Labour Against The Witchhunt over member's support for Holocaust denier", Jewish Chronicle.

  42. ^ "Exposed: Brexit Party MEPs on antisemitic conspiracy show". Hope not Hate. Retrieved 22 August 2019.

    Ben Welch (18 August 2019). "Brexit Party figures 'appeared on show which promoted Holocaust denial'", Jewish Chronicle.

  43. ^ Brigit Grant (11 November 2020). "Report: London conspiracy group uniting far-left and far-right". Jewish News.
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