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Witch
Hunt *)
Nicholas Kollerstrom 
(born 13 December 1946) is an English writer and historian of science. Formerly an honorary research fellow at University College London (UCL) and BBC lunar gardening correspondent, he is the author of several books, including Gardening and Planting by the Moon (an annual series beginning 1980), Newton's Forgotten Lunar Theory (2000), Crop Circles (2002), and Terror on the Tube (2009).
Kollerstrom has been involved in a variety of issues as a political activist.
Kollerstrom attended Corpus Christi College, Cambridge from 1965, obtaining his BA in natural sciences in 1968 (promoted to MA in 1973) with a focus on the history and philosophy of
science. He worked as a physics teacher before becoming a graduate student in science and technology at University College London
(UCL). He was awarded his PhD in 1995 for a thesis entitled, The Achievement of Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' of
1702.
UCL awarded him an honorary research fellowship, and in 1999 he received a grant from the Royal Astronomical Society to work on the classification of correspondence related to the British discovery of Neptune. Along with William Sheehan and Craig Waff, he concluded in an article for Scientific American in 2004 that the British had wrongly taken credit for the discovery of the
planet. He has a particular interest in the effect of the sun, moon and planets on plant growth, and previously served as the BBC's lunar gardening correspondent. His Gardening and Planting by the Moon
has been published every year since 1980 as an annual
series.
In the 2000s Kollerstrom became involved with the 911 truth movement , campaigned against the Iraq
War, and appeared in a 2006 internet film by David Shayler arguing that the men accused of the 7 July 2005 London bombings had not carried out the
attack. Kollerstrom's book on the subject, 'Terror on the Tube: Behind the Veil of 7/7, An
Investigation'
, was published in April 2009, and he was interviewed by the BBC for its series, The Conspiracy Files, broadcast in June
2009.
UCL removed Kollerstrom's honorary fellowship in April 2008 after articles of his appeared on Holocaust denial
websites. One was published in June 2007 on a website run by the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust
(CODOH)
, and another in March 2008 in Smith's
report
, an online newsletter published by the co-founder of CODOH, Bradley
Smith.
In one of the articles Kollerstrom wrote that one million Jews had died in the Holocaust, not six million, that gas chambers had operated in Auschwitz only for the purpose of disinfection, and that
the only intentional mass extermination program in the concentration camps of WW2 was targeted at Germans ... in French and American-run concentration camps," material he said had been
erased from the history books. In another he wrote that Auschwitz had had art classes and a well-stocked library for inmates, as well as an elegant swimming pool where inmates would sunbathe at weekends while watching water-polo
matches.
The articles were brought to the university's attention by bloggers, after Kollerstrom expressed views about the 2005 London bombings during a book launch that prompted people to make inquiries about
him. Kollerstrom gave an interview in May 2008 to the Iranian government's Press TV
about the loss of his
fellowship.
Britain's Index on Censorship
asked Brendan O'Neill
of Spiked and "Unity" of Liberal Conspiracy to comment on the removal of the fellowship. "Unity" argued that it was justified because of the poor scholarship and lack of judgment, whereas O'Neill's position was that Kollerstrom was pursuing ideas in his spare time and his dismissal amounted to a witch
hunt
. In 2010 historian of science Noel Swerdlow suggested in Isis that three entries Kollerstrom wrote for the Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers be
removed. The Jewish Chronicle reported that Kollerstrom saw himself as the victim of a
calumny by bloggers. He said that he had no interest in the Nazi movement, had always belonged to groups like the Green Party, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and the Respect party, and regarded himself as having been accused of a
thought-crime.
In 2014 he published 'Breaking the Spell' [Den Bann brechen]
detailing at length his view of the Holocaust.
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