As then 22-year-old Pete Turnham walked through Neuschwanstein Castle in southern Bavaria with his sergeant, little did he know he was looking at some of Western Civilization’s most valuable art masterpieces.

Hitler and the Nazis had stashed artwork stolen from France and elsewhere in the castle, which was the inspiration for the Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland in California.

Turnham, a first lieutenant who led a 200-man infantry company charged with guarding the castle and its contents after the war ended in May 1945, said he couldn’t see much as he toured the castle.

“(The artwork) was crated up and packed in such a way that you couldn’t (see much),” Turnham said. “And we wouldn’t have known what it was. We would have said ‘That’s an old man with a mustache.’ ”

Sure, his commanders had told him he would be guarding works of art looted by the Nazis that Hitler had earmarked for museums, but he said he had no idea how valuable the lot was. Only later, when he found out the art’s value, did he realize what he had been protecting.

“I said ‘Man, that’s awesome, that’s unbelievable, just think what we had on our hands,’” he said from his Auburn office, where he still works regularly at the age of 93. “Of course, now, in the modern times, think what that would be worth. It would be worth a royal fortune.”

Turnham said his company was guarding the castle until art experts came in, separated the art and sent it back to where it belonged. Those experts are currently portrayed in “The Monuments Men” by a host of stars, including George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray and John Goodman.  Turnham said he hasn’t seen the film, but plans to check it out soon.

But before he guarded art masterpieces, Turnham said he and his outfit witnessed some of the worst atrocities perpetrated by Hitler and the Nazis. After fighting for months on the front lines through France and Germany, his infantry division (the 71st) participated in the liberation of Gunskirchen Lager, a concentration camp hidden in the woods near Lambach, Austria, where Jews and others were held in inhuman conditions as prisoners.

“We were always in there first, so we saw the horrors before anybody else did,” Turnham said. “You talk about skin and bones. It just makes you cry. Some of them tried to come to us and just dropped dead they were so exhausted.

“You see such as this, and you know why you fight the war. It’s all about humans and democracy. I wouldn’t have believed this if I hadn’t seen it.”

Turnham’s tour ended in August 1946, and he came back to the U.S., spent two years doing postgraduate work at Auburn on the G.I. Bill of Rights, and served in the Infantry Reserve, retiring in 1959.

About that time, in 1958, Turnham was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives, for his first term, which he thought would also be his last. 

Turnham said he was part of a group in Lee County that was looking for young candidate to run for a seat in the state Legislature. When the group met to share their views on who the candidate should be, Turnham got some unexpected news.

“We all met, and everybody asked each other ‘Have you decided who you want?’ And I said ‘Well, I’ve been gone all week, and I really haven’t.’ Well, they said ‘That’s all right. We have.’ I said ‘Who did you all pick,’ and they said ‘You.’ 

“I said, ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll serve one term, four years, and then I’m coming home.’ They said ‘OK.’ So I took it, got elected and stayed there 40 years. I said ‘That’s just like a politician, saying your going to stay four years, and you stay 40.’ ”

Turnham retired from the Legislature in 1998, the longest tenure in Alabama history.

Turnham said serving the Legislature was “an awesome responsibility,” and that he was also glad he got the “chance to go and fight for my country.

“I’d do it again,” he said.