Ledditors would probably repeat the very serious and academically supported story that KIS actually stole the identity/valor of a deceased Korean Anti-Japanese War hero just to swoop in and claim power.
Which is a hilarious cope theory that makes no sense at all if you think about it for even one second. A war hero so popular that his identity could be used to gain mass support, but also so unknown that nobody knew him or what he looked like. Wouldn’t it be easier just to fabricate a war hero story for Kim Il-Sung instead of stealing someone else’s identity and risking being caught in the lie by loved ones/associates?
Sorry, I meant an Anti-Japanese War hero, obviously he was a public figure during the Korean War.
Of course, I think the only basis is that “Kim Il-Sung” is a nom-de-guerre that many Korean guerillas used (his birth name was Kim Song-Ju) and as guerillas using false names, there was some level of secrecy and transience against a genocidal foe that makes attribution more difficult, but fundamentally you’re right that that doesn’t mean no other veterans knew him during the war (many did), nor do I think there was ever anyone with the DPRK who claimed he was a pretender in that manner, it was just the pet project of a South Korean conspiracy theorist that for a period was taught as fact but later abandoned.
Ledditors would probably repeat the very serious and academically supported story that KIS actually stole the identity/valor of a deceased
KoreanAnti-Japanese War hero just to swoop in and claim power.Which is a hilarious cope theory that makes no sense at all if you think about it for even one second. A war hero so popular that his identity could be used to gain mass support, but also so unknown that nobody knew him or what he looked like. Wouldn’t it be easier just to fabricate a war hero story for Kim Il-Sung instead of stealing someone else’s identity and risking being caught in the lie by loved ones/associates?
Sorry, I meant an Anti-Japanese War hero, obviously he was a public figure during the Korean War.
Of course, I think the only basis is that “Kim Il-Sung” is a nom-de-guerre that many Korean guerillas used (his birth name was Kim Song-Ju) and as guerillas using false names, there was some level of secrecy and transience against a genocidal foe that makes attribution more difficult, but fundamentally you’re right that that doesn’t mean no other veterans knew him during the war (many did), nor do I think there was ever anyone with the DPRK who claimed he was a pretender in that manner, it was just the pet project of a South Korean conspiracy theorist that for a period was taught as fact but later abandoned.