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Concept
Doug Collins (journalist)
Summary
Reginald Douglas Collins (8 September 1920 – 29 September 2001) was a British-born Canadian journalist. He was also a Holocaust denier who was frequently accused of racism and anti-Semitism.
At the start of World War II he joined the British Army. As a sergeant in the Gloucestershire Regiment, he was captured in the Battle of Dunkirk in 1940, later being awarded the Military Medal for bravery during this campaign.
During his four years as a prisoner of war, he made no fewer than ten escape attempts. He was able to escape from a German POW camp in Silesia and stealthily made his way to Hungary. After being captured there, he made another daring escape, this time making his way to Romania. There he was imprisoned once again, but when Romania capitulated in 1944, he was freed and returned to Britain, serving in combat with British forces in northwest Europe during the war's final months.
The exact nature of his exploits while a POW have not been without controversy, however, with some questioning the veracity of his numerous escapes from Nazi-controlled prisons.
From 1946 to 1950, Collins worked as a political intelligence officer with the British Control Commission's de-nazification department in Germany.
Collins emigrated to Canada in 1952 and worked for several decades as a reporter or columnist for several Western Canadian newspapers including the Calgary Herald, Vancouver Sun and Vancouver Province.
In November, 1953, Collins, while working for the Calgary Herald, exposed George Dupre's claims of being a war-time spy as a hoax. The disclosure came soon after publication of The Man Who Wouldn't Talk, a book about Dupre by American journalist, Quentin Reynolds.
The following spring, in 1954, Collins testified on behalf of Westbrook Pegler in the case of Reynolds v. Pegler, a defamation case arising from comments written in 1949 by Pegler against Reynolds. Collins gave evidence as to Reynolds's reputation as a writer, arising from Reynolds's book about Dupre.
Official source
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