particularly concerned with communist influence, saying "Only the most naïve could believe that the Communists' fifth column in the United States would neglect to propagate and use homosexuals to gain their treacherous ends." Buchenwald concentration camp On April 11, 1945, US forces liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp, which was established in 1937 and caused the deaths of at least 56,545 people. General Eisenhower left rotting corpses unburied so a visiting group of U.S. legislators could truly understand the horror of the atrocities. This group was visiting Buchenwald to inspect the camp and learn firsthand about the enormity of the Nazi Final Solution and treatment of other prisoners. Wherry visited the camp along with Alben W. Barkley, Ed Izac, John M. Vorys, Dewey Short, C. Wayland Brooks, General Omar N. Bradley, and journalists Joseph Pulitzer, Norman Chandler, William I. Nichols and Julius Ochs Adler. Death Wherry died in Washington in 1951 at age 59, while serving as Republican Floor Leader. Recovering from abdominal surgery a few weeks earlier, he felt ill and was admitted to George Washington University Hospital and died of pneumonia several hours later. The fifteenth Senate term for Nebraska's Class 2 seat, from January 3, 1949, to January 3, 1955, was unusual in that it saw six Senators occupy the seat, beginning with Wherry. See also List of United States Congress members who died in office (1950–99) References External links at Nebraska State Historical Society "Fundamentalist Republican", obituary from Time – Kenneth S. Wherry, 1892-1951 1892 births 1951 deaths 20th-century American politicians Harvard Business School alumni Mayors of places in Nebraska Nebraska city council members Republican Party Nebraska state senators Old Right (United States) People from Gage County, Nebraska People from Pawnee County, Nebraska Republican Party United States senators from Nebraska University of Nebraska–Lincoln alumni American anti-communists Conservatism in the United States History of United States isolationism