Chełmno (Kulmhof) camp was set up by "SS-Sturmbannführer" Herbert Lange, following his gas van experiments in the murder of 1,558 Polish prisoners of the Soldau concentration camp northeast of Chełmno nad Nerem. In October 1941, Lange toured the area looking for a suitable site for an extermination centre, and chose Chełmno on the Ner, because of the estate, with a large manor house similar to Sonnenstein, which could be used for mass admissions of prisoners with only minor modifications. Staff for the facility was selected personally by Ernst Damzog, Commander of Security Police and SD from headquarters in occupied Poznań (Posen). Damzog formed the "SS-Sonderkommando Lange" (special detachment), and appointed Herbert Lange the first camp commandant because of his experience in the mass killing of Poles from "Wartheland" (Wielkopolska). Lange served with "Einsatzgruppe" VI during Operation Tannenberg. Already by mid-1940, Lange and his men were responsible for the murder of about 1,100 patients in Owińska, 2,750 patients at Kościan, 1,558 patients and 300 Poles at Działdowo, and hundreds of Poles at Fort VII where the mobile gas-chamber ("Einsatzwagen") was invented. Their earlier hospital victims were usually shot out of town in the back of the neck. The two so-called "Kaisers-Kaffe" vans, manufactured by the Gaubschat factory in Berlin, were delivered in November. Chełmno began mass gassing operations on using vehicles approved by "Obergruppenführer" Reinhard Heydrich from RSHA. Two months later, on Heydrich, who had already confirmed the effectiveness of industrial killing by exhaust fumes, called a secret meeting of German officials to undertake the European-wide Final Solution to the Jewish Question under the pretext of "resettlement".