[4] The secret lists identified more than 61,000 members of the Polish elite: activists, intelligentsia, scholars, clergy, actors, former officers and others, who were to be interned or shot.

[4] Operation Tannenberg was followed by the shooting and gassing of hospital patients and disabled adults, as part of the wider Aktion T4 programme.

[5][a] Following the orders of Adolf Hitler, a special unit dubbed Tannenberg was created within the Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt).

It commanded a number of Einsatzgruppen units formed with Gestapo, Kripo and Sicherheitsdienst (SD) officers and men who were theoretically to follow the Wehrmacht (armed forces) into occupied territories.

[10] Lange's experience in the mass killing of Poles during Operation Tannenberg was the reason why Ernst Damzog, the Commander of Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police) and SD stationed in occupied Poznań (Posen) placed him in charge of the SS-Sonderkommando Lange (special detachment) for the purpose of mass gassing operations which led to the eventual annihilation of the Łódź Ghetto.