Germans were banned from eating sausages during WW1 to make Zeppelins

The Germans were banned from eating sausages during the First World War as the ingredients were needed to make the infamous Zeppelin airships, it has been revealed.

Cow guts were used to make gas holding cells on the giant airships and the animals' intestines became so precious making the popular bratwurst and other sausages was temporarily made illegal in areas under German control, the Daily Express reported.

It took more than 250,000 cows to make a single airship, and the Zeppelins became a key weapon for the Germans during the 1914 to 1918 war.

Details of the sausage ban were uncovered by researchers working on a Channel 4 documentary.

For the programme Dr Hugh Hunt, a University of Cambridge engineer, examined the role of the Zeppelin in the war, which foreshadowed the Blitz by bringing war to British civilians for the first time in centuries.

He studied how the silent aircraft were built and how the British adapted to their threat.

Details of the use of cow intestines, or goldbeater's skins, were found in a document prepared for the US National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in 1922. It details how the ban also applied to occupied Austria, Poland and Northern France.