While in Poznań , Damzog was actively involved in the mass expulsions of Poles from Reichsgau Wartheland to General Government , including after the 1941 German attack across the Soviet zone of occupation . He personally selected staff for the killing centre in Chełmno extermination camp and supervised its daily operation . The first victims there came from the local villages , and the mass killings with the use of gas vans started on 8 December 1941 . It was the precursor to the Final Solution , because the idea of systematic genocide by gassing the able-bodied was not yet fully explored . Damzog is said to have related his ' experiments ' to both Wilhelm Koppe and Arthur Greiser
expulsions of Poles
Expulsion of Poles by Nazi Germany
Ernst Damzog