U.K. farmer forced to cull "aggressive" Nazi cows

LONDON -- Dubbed the "Nazi cows," some members of a rare cattle breed bought more than a decade ago by a British farmer have been slaughtered and turned into sausages because they were too aggressive to keep, according to the U.K.'s Independent newspaper.

The cows were bred by a pair of sibling scientists under Hitler's Third Reich; part of a Nazi effort to revive an extinct European breed known as the Auroch, which was recognized for its musculature and fierce demeanor.

The Heck cattle, named after the brothers who helped breed them, were used as a symbol of strength in Nazi propaganda, the newspaper reports.

"The ones we had to get rid of would just attack you any chance they could," English farmer Derek Gow told The Independent.

He said about half of his small herd was "incredibly aggressive," putting himself and his staff at risk.

"They would try to kill anyone. Dealing with that was not fun at all. They are by far and away the most aggressive animals I have ever worked with," he told the British newspaper.

"When the Germans were selecting them to create this animal they used Spanish fighting cattle to give them the shape and ferocity they wanted," said Gow, who farms the breed in Devon, England. His herd is now reduced to just six cattle.

"We just couldn't handle them" the farmer said.

Despite his being the only herd in the U.K., the farmer isn't worried about the breed's future, noting that with the more ferocious members now gone, "peace reigns supreme on the farm." As an added bonus, he told The Independent he now has some "very tasty" sausages.

A European biodiversity group, the European Wildlife organization, has plans to produce their own version of the Auroch, which they intend to allow to roam semi-wild in the mountainous regions of central Europe.

The new breed will be bred from different cows than those the Nazi's chose to use in the 1920s and 30s.