At ninety-four, the North Korean official whose propaganda made the Kim dynasty possible passes away

North Korean state media said that Kim Ki Nam, a propaganda chief who contributed to the development of personality cults centered on the nation’s three dynastic leaders, had passed away at the age of 94.

According to the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) of North Korea, Kim Jong Un, the nation’s current leader, paid a visit to Kim Ki Nam’s corpse early on Wednesday at a Pyongyang funeral parlor and offered his sympathies to Kim Ki Nam’s family. Kim Ki Nam’s state burial committee will be headed by Kim Jong Un, the agency reported. Kim Ki Nam will be laid to rest on Thursday.

The ruling Workers’ Party’s central committee secretary, Kim Ki Nam, according to KCNA, “devoted his all to the sacred struggle for defending and strengthening the ideological purity of our revolution and firmly guaranteeing the steady victory of the socialist cause.” According to the organization, he was treated for age-related ailments and several organ dysfunctions over the previous year before passing away on Tuesday.

As the nation’s main propagandist, Kim Ki Nam gained recognition in South Korea, where the media dubbed him the “North Korean Goebbels,” a reference to Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda minister of Nazi Germany.

In 2009, he oversaw the team that traveled to South Korea to attend the burial of the country’s former president, Kim Dae-jung, who had cultivated relations with the North and arranged a meeting with Kim Jong Il, the father of the current leader.

Following the late leader Kim Jong Il’s death in 2011, Kim Ki Nam was one of the seven senior officials that accompanied Kim Jong Un in his hearing.

Before assuming top positions in the propaganda divisions of the governing Workers’ Party beginning in the 1980s, Kim Ki Nam worked as an academic at Kim Il Sung University and as the main editorial writer of the state-run daily Rodong Sinmun.