"It was a terrible word to have chosen," Perkins told interviewer Emily Chang. "I, like many, have tried to understand the 20th century, and the incomprehensible evil of the Holocaust. It can't be explained, even to try to explain it is questionable. It's wrong. It's evil."

Did you catch that? That's the apology part, Perkins saying he's sorry for comparing Kristallnacht and, by implication, the murder of millions to ... what exactly?

Perkins again:

I used the word because during the Occupy of San Francisco by the Occupy Wall Street crowd, they broke the windows of the Wells Fargo Bank, they marched up to our automobile strip on Van Ness Avenue and broke all the windows in all the luxury car dealerships. And I saw that and I remember that the police just stood by, frozen, and I thought, 'Well, this is how Kristallnacht began,' so that word was in my mind.

So, just for the sake of those keeping score at home, Perkins sees the Occupy movement in 2011-12 as the modern equivalent to 1938 Germany's fascist ruling party turning loose its paramilitaries and thugs to wreak havoc on a community that had been under increasing government-sponsored attacks for more than five years.

He later expanded on his Occupy Wall Street/Nazi Germany parallel:

The Jews were only 1 percent of the German population, most Germans had never met a Jew, yet Hitler was able to demonize the Jews, and Kristallnacht was one of the earlier manifestations, but there'd been others before it, and then of course we know about the evil of the Holocaust. I guess my point was that when you start to use hatred against a minority, it can get out of control. I think that was my thought. And now that as the messenger I've been thoroughly killed by everybody, at least read the message.

Perkins went on to say that public figures he considers friends, including Al Gore and Gov. Jerry Brown, have told him that inequality is the No. 1 issue facing the United States. "But the 1 percent are not causing the inequality," Perkins said. "They are the job creators. ... It's absurd to demonize the rich for being rich and doing what the rich do, which is get richer by creating opportunity for others."

And the wealthy are under threat, he said. "I think we're beginning to engage in class warfare. I think the rich as a class are threatened through higher taxes, higher regulation and so forth. And that's my message."

Perkins acknowledged the 99 percent, where he says he started out, are suffering. He said the inequality besetting the nation is due to over-regulation and "higher costs caused by more government than we need."

"I think the solution is less interference, lower taxes, let the rich do what the rich do, which is get richer, but along the way they bring everyone else with them when the system is working," Perkins said.

Tom PerkinsTom Perkins

Tom Perkins Says He's Sorry, Sort of, for 'Kristallnacht' Remark