Ernst Rahm was one of Hitlers early supporters and was dragged out of a bed he was sharing with another man that night.
Ernst Roehm was the Chief of Staff [and de facto commander] of the Sturmabteilung, or SA (the Brownshirts). He was also a very left-wing Nazi [the SA were known as ‘beefsteak Nazis’-brown on the outside, red on the inside].
Roehm kept calling for the ‘second revolution’, and wanted to incorporate the German Army into the SA as a sort of revolutionary militia. He refused to quiet down when told to by hitler, Hess, and others. He was seized at a gathering of SA leaders oredered by Hitler. Hitler himself participated in Roehm’s seizure. He was taken to stadelhelm prison where, after he refused the opportunity to kill himself, he was murdered by Theodore Eicke, the commandant of Dachau, and one or two other SS officers.
Ernst Rahm was one of Hitlers early supporters and was dragged out of a bed he was sharing with another man that night.
The homosexuality of Roehm as partial justification for the night of the long knives was pure politics designed to calm a nervous public. Hitler and Roehm may well have played with each others flute.
That nazis sent some classes of homosexuals to the camps means little. Homosexuals come in many stripes. The skinhead, death metal homosexuals are quite ruthless towards the flowershop ballet dancing type homosexual.