Oliver Stone apologizes for Holocaust remark

Filmmaker Oliver Stone apologized for remarks about the Holocaust and Jewish media influence that were criticized as being anti-Semitic.

"In trying to make a broader historical point about the range of atrocities the Germans committed against many people, I made a clumsy association about the Holocaust, for which I am sorry and I regret," Stone said in a statement released by his publicist, Rubenstein Communications, Bloomberg News reports.

The apology followed comments Stone made to the Sunday Times of London. "Hitler was a Frankenstein, but there was also a Dr. Frankenstein," Stone told the Times. "German industrialists, the Americans and the British. He had a lot of support."

Stone sought to put the atrocities in proportion, the Times reported. "Hitler did far more damage to the Russians than the Jewish people, 25 or 30 million," Stone told the newspaper.

The comments drew criticism from David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, an advocacy group that promotes "societies that respect the dignity of all peoples.

"By invoking this grotesque, toxic stereotype, Oliver Stone has outed himself as an anti-Semite," Harris said in a statement.