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Hitler's regime persecuted homosexuals, sending an estimated 5,000 to 15,000 to concentration camps; some 2,500 to 7,500 of these died.[27] Ernst Röhm was his closest friend—the only person who called him "Adolf"[28]—but after the Night of the Long Knives (1934), Hitler described the homosexuality of Röhm and other SA leaders as corrupt and immoral.[29] In August 1941, Hitler declared that "homosexuality is actually as infectious and as dangerous as the plague",[30] and supported Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler's efforts to remove gay men from the military and the SS. Male homosexuality was illegal, and offenders were sent to prison or directly to concentration camps.[31]
