Former state Rep. Pete Turnham looks brochures of work his company produced over the years in Auburn, Ala. For Turnham, “The Monuments Men” is not a Hollywood movie about World War II. It’s part of his life. The 93-year-old businessman spent the summer and fall of 1945 guarding Neuschwanstein Castle, where Nazis hid thousands of artworks seized during the war, mostly in France. (AP Photo/Butch Dill)By Phillip Rawls
AUBURN, Ala. — For former state Rep. Pete Turnham, of Auburn, “The Monuments Men” is not a Hollywood movie about World War II. It’s part of his life.
The 93-year-old businessman spent the summer and fall of 1945 guarding a Bavarian castle where Nazis hid thousands of artworks seized during the war, mostly in France.
“They were going to keep it until after the war, and Hitler was going to put it in a museum,” Turnham said.
“The Monuments Men,” directed by George Clooney and starring Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray and John Goodman, focuses on seven museum directors, curators and art historians who entered Germany with Allied forces during the closing stages of World War II to rescue artworks seized by the Nazis. Their goal was to protect the art from being destroyed by the Nazis and return it to its rightful owners.