In 1934, Adolf Hitler gave the Nuremberg architect Ludwig Ruff the contract to design a meeting place for the party congress of the National Socialist German Workers Party, which took place annually during the Party Rallies. At the Party Rally a year later, the cornerstone was laid for a hall which would offer space to 50,000 people. When the war began, work on the Congress Hall was stopped and never restarted; the Congress Hall remains an unfinished shell.