North Korea hits out at 'handful of human scum' who claimed that Kim Jong-un gave out copies of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf to officials on his birthday

Pyongyang threatens to kill defectors responsible for report

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (AP)

North Korea has hit out at 'scum' defectors after they published a report that its leader, Kim Jong-un, gave out copies of Adolf Hitler's memoir Mein Kampf to officials on his birthday.

A news website run by defectors claimed that officials were given the book as a gift in January, citing an unnamed North Korean official in China.

“Mentioning that Hitler managed to rebuild Germany in a short time following its defeat in WWI, Kim Jong-un issued an order for the Third Reich to be studied in depth and asked that practical applications be drawn from it,” the source reportedly told News portal New Focus International.

North Korea has denounced the "smear campaign" by defectors and labelled them “human scum” before threatening to kill them.

North Korea's Ministry of People's Security issued an angry response which was carried by the country's official news agency, KCNA.

"We are determined to take substantial measures to physically remove despicable human scum who are committing treasons.

"Sordid human scum will never be able to look up to the sky, nor be able to find an inch of land to be buried after their death."

The defectors were being used by South Korea and the US, it went on.

Nazi leader Adolf Hitler wrote his semi-autobiographical, anti-Semitic diatribe Mein Kampf (My Struggle) in 1924 while in prison.

Meanwhile, North Korea has proposed high-level talks with the US to ease tensions and discuss nuclear disarmament.

The powerful National Defence Commission called on the US to set the time and the place for a round of unconditional talks to “secure peace and stability in the region and ease tension on the Korean peninsula”.

Last week the two Koreas were due to revive a dialogue that stalled six years ago. But the talk fell through because of bickering over who would lead the national delegations.

The armistice which ended the 1950-53 Korean War has never been replaced with a peace treaty, leaving the neighbours technically at war.