Cattle - Nazi Cows - Aurochs
Nazi Germany practiced a warped, twisted eugenics that led to the deaths of millions upon millions of people. However, it didn't stop with people. As well as breeding an Aryan 'Master Race', they wanted to breed animals from the past that would symbolize that mastery.
Deep in the West Country, a symbol of the Nazi vision for world domination has finally found a home in the fields of England.
This cow is a relic of the Fuhrer's support for a scheme to revive the mighty aurochs, a huge beast which featured heavily in Teutonic folklore.
The aurochs had been hunted to extinction in Europe by 1627, but two zoologist brothers decided to 'bring them back to life' in a breeding plan which later won Nazi support.
Heinz and Lutz Heck mixed animals from the Scottish Highlands, Corsica and the French Camargue, as well as Spanish fighting bulls.
The animals were then transported to game parks in Schorfheide in Brandenburg, outside Berlin, and the Neander Valley in Dusseldorf.
After the fall of the Nazis, the Heck cattle were seen as an unwanted reminder of German oppression and efforts to build a master Aryan race, and almost all of them were destroyed.
But a few survived, and 13 have now been shipped from a conservation park in Belgium to Broadwoodwidger on the Devon-Cornwall border.
Farmer and conservationist Derek Gow explained that the Nazis supported the re-creation of the auroch to evoke the power of the 'runes, folklores and legends of the Germanic peoples'.
He said: 'Aurochs were wild bulls. Julius Caesar recorded them as being bulls as big as elephants.
'Young men hunted these bulls as preparation for battle and leadership in war, but also to obtain their huge 6 ft. wide horns as drinking vessels. They were huge trophies.'
Mr Gow said his Heck cattle are shorter than the aurochs, but share their muscular build, deep brown complexion and shaggy fringe.
'They look like the cave paintings of Lascaux and Altamira,' he said. 'It makes you think of the light of a tallow lamp and these huge bulls on these cave paintings leaping out at you from darkened walls.'
The aurochs were decimated due to habitat loss and hunting, and became extinct when the last individual died in 1627 in Jaktorów forest in Poland.
Hybridization between aurochs and early domestic cattle occurred several times in the past. One gave rise to the domestic cattle (Bos taurus) in the Fertile Crescent in the Near East that was introduced to Europe via the Balkans and the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Domestication of the Indian aurochs led to the zebu cattle (Bos indicus) that hybridized with early taurine cattle in the Near East about 4,000 years ago. Some modern cattle breeds exhibit features reminiscent of the aurochs, such as the dark colour and light eel stripe along the back of bulls, the lighter colour of cows, or an aurochs-like horn shape.
Both "aur" and "ur" are Germanic or Celtic words meaning wild ox. The Latin word "urus" was used for wild ox since the Gallic Wars.
"Aurochs" is now both the singular and the plural term used to refer to the animal.
According to a 16th century description by Sigismund von Herberstein, the aurochs was pitch-black with a grey streak along the back; the proportions and body shape of the aurochs were strikingly different from many modern cattle breeds. For example, the legs were considerably longer and more slender, resulting in a shoulder height that nearly equalled the trunk length. The skull, carrying the large horns, was substantially larger and more elongated than in most cattle breeds. As in other wild bovines, the body shape of the aurochs was athletic, and especially in bulls, showed a strongly expressed neck and shoulder musculature. Therefore, the fore hand was larger than the rear, similar to the wisent, but unlike many domesticated cattle. Even in carrying cows, the udder was small and hardly visible from the side; this feature is equal to that of other wild bovines.
The body mass of aurochs appears to have shown some variability. Some individuals reached around 1,540 lb., whereas estimates of skeletal remains are estimated to have weighed up to 3,310 lb. The aurochs exhibited considerable sexual dimorphism in the size of males and females.
The horns were massive, reaching 31 in. in length and between 3.9 and 7.9 in. in diameter. Its horns grew from the skull at a 60° angle to the muzzle facing forwards and were curved in three directions, namely upwards and outwards at the base, then swinging forwards and inwards, then inwards and upwards. The curvature of bull horns was more strongly expressed than horns of cows. The basal circumference of horn cores reached 17.5 in. in the largest Chinese specimen and 19 in. in a French specimen. Some cattle breeds still show horn shapes similar to that of the aurochs, such as the Spanish fighting bull, and occasionally also individuals of derived breeds.
The aurochs was widely distributed in North Africa, Mesopotamia, and throughout Europe to the Pontic–Caspian steppe, Caucasus and Western Siberia in the west and to the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga in the north.
The last known aurochs herd lived in a marshy woodland in Poland's Jaktorów Forest. It decreased from around 50 individuals in the mid 16th century to four individuals by 1601. The last aurochs cow died in 1627 from natural causes.
