Through the misty early morning sunlight dappling a Devon field a vision from the primeval past lumbers into view. The beast with its shaggy, russet-tinged coat, powerful shoulders and lyre-shaped horns could have stepped straight from a prehistoric cave painting.

The vision is a creature of which even Julius Caesar was in awe: Bos primigenius, the aurochs, fearsome wild ancestor of all today’s domestic cattle, immortalised tens of thousands of years ago in ochre and charcoal in the Great Hall of the Bulls at Lascaux in southwest France.

But this herd of 13 bulls, cows and calves known as Heck cattle is the product of Nazi genetic engineering, an attempt to reintroduce the extinct aurochs, the last of which died of old age in a Polish forest nearly four centuries ago. The cattle have been imported into Britain for the first time by Derek Gow, a conservationist who is also at the forefront of attempts to reintroduce the beaver.

Mr Gow said: “They look like the cave paintings of Lascaux and Altamira. 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 herd has Herman Goering, the head of Hitler’s Luftwaffe, to thank for its existence. Goering hoped to recreate a primeval Aryan wilderness in the conquered territories of Eastern Europe. Two zoologist brothers, Lutz and Heinz Heck, took on the task of scouring Europe for the most primitive breeds of cattle they could find in the belief that by “back breeding” they could resurrect the extinct species.

Heinz Heck, based at Munich Zoo, cross-bred shaggy Highland cattle with animals from Corsica and Hungary, while his brother in Berlin was crossing Spanish and French fighting bulls. The success of the Hecks’ breeding programme is as disputed as the techniques they used.

Most geneticists now believe that it is impossible to recover a lost species by back breeding, but few dispute that Heck cattle resemble the ancient aurochs, at least superfically.

The biggest difference is size. Bos primigenius stood two metres tall at the shoulder, taller than a grown man. The Heck cows are similar in size to modern domestic cattle.

They may not be as large but Mr Gow can vouch for the fact that they resemble their forebears in other ways. His herd was imported from a Dutch nature reserve where they lived wild without any human contact.

He said: “They are getting used to me now but they are very nervous with people they don’t know.

“The bull isn’t too bad but a couple of the cows are awful. The body shape is lean and mean and built for speed and they can be hideously fast and aggressive.”

The Devon herd is descended from the handful of Heck cattle that survived the war. They were imported from Oostvaardersplassen, a nature reserve near Amsterdam, where 600 Heck cattle roam free. There they live and die alongside herds of wild horses and red deer, helping to shape the landscape by grazing and rutting. Left to their own devices, the cattle have reverted to primitive behaviour patterns that predate domestication.

Mr Gow said: “The bulls are fast and have incredible stamina because in order to mate with the cows they need to chase them, sometimes for hours.”

Mr Gow’s herd is unlikely to be able to enjoy such freedom as there are few places in Britain where they would be able to roam free. Instead he intends to breed them, selecting the more placid animals that are less likely to react to a curious Pekingese as though it were a maurauding carnivore. Ultimately he hopes to supply them as grazing animals for nature reserves and “rewilding” projects.

He also hopes that they will become an attraction for wildlife photographers and animal lovers at his farm at Upcott near Liftondown, which is also home to beavers and other endangered species, including water voles.

The aurochs are believed to have become extinct in Britain during the Iron Age but they lingered on in parts of Europe well into the Middle Ages.

They eventually succumbed to hunting and disease spread by domestic cattle. Despite a valiant effort to keep the breed alive by Royal decree, the last survivor died in the Jaktorów Forest in Poland in 1627.

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