N. Korea leader distributes ‘Mein Kampf’ to officials

Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s supreme ruler, has distributed copies of Adolf Hitler’s manifesto, “Mein Kampf,” among top officials in the country. The North Korean despot urged the officials to study the late German dictator’s book as a leadership skills manual, AFP reported.

New Focus International, an online news site run by North Korean defectors, reported that Kim gave out the copies in honor of his birthday in January.

“Mentioning that Hitler managed to rebuild Germany in a short time following its defeat in World War I, Kim Jong-un issued an order for the Third Reich to be studied in depth and asked that practical applications be drawn from it,” an anonymous North Korean official working in China told the news site.

North Korea denied the accusations and threatened to kill the report’s authors.

“We are determined to take substantial measures to physically remove the despicable human scum who are committing treason,” an official statement issued by the state-run Korean Central News Agency declared.

Hitler wrote “Mein Kampf” — a rambling anti-Semitic book outlining his ideology — after he was jailed in Bavaria in the aftermath of the failed Beer Hall Putsch of 1923.