In 1933 someone set fire to the Reichstag, the historic German Parliament Building. Hitler seized on the occasion to incite in the German population a fear of terrorists and foreign agents, and trumped up his case for the preemptive invasion of Eastern Europe. To prevent further acts of terrorism, Hitler curtailed civil rights and created the first concentration camp at Dachau. Predating the extermination camps by a half dozen years, Dachau began as an internment camp for political foes and other "enemies of the state." Many Germans felt that the Reichstag fire was a Nazi deception, set deliberately to further Nazi goals. >