N. Korea Isn't Nazi Germany -- in Ways, It's Worse

For one thing, most of North Korea's roughly 25 million inhabitants are chronically hungry, malnourished, or straight-out starving. The citizens of wartime Germany faced hardships and shortages, but nothing near the same levels North Koreans routinely deal with, especially in times of crop failure. The other big differences are longevity and technology. Hitler's propaganda, indoctrination, and surveillance techniques were weak or primitive compared with the Big Brother apparatus the Kim family and its retainers have developed over the past six decades. WWII-era Germans didn't have press freedoms or freedom of expression or congregation or exercise of religion, but most of them — targeted groups obviously excluded — were encouraged to go about their business, making money (and wartime goods and munitions) for the fatherland.