Improvised genocide? The emergence of the 'Final Solution' in the 'Warthegau'

The 'Warthegau' was the largest of three areas of western Poland annexed to the German Reich after the defeat of Poland in 1939. Some of the first major deportations took place from Warthegau, and the first big ghetto was established at Lodz. The first mobile gassing units to be deployed against the Jews operated there at the end of 1941. To focus upon the Warthegau in the genesis of the "Final Solution" can help to contribute to the question of how and when the decision to wipe out the Jews of Europe came about. Hitler's own role in the emergence of a policy of systematic genocide was mainly to voice the need for a radical 'solution' to the 'Jewish question'