While the road up from the Ötztal valley was built for tourism purposes, the situation in the Passeier Valley (on the southern side) was very different. As in many other parts of the Italian Alps, Mussolini, the ruler from 1922 to 1945, had numerous military roads built up towards Italy's international borders. Construction of the road from Moos in Passeier, 10 km southeast from the pass, commenced in the 1930s. After the meeting between Mussolini and Hitler on the Brenner in 1939, construction work ceased. The road was narrow and rough, but had almost been completed. The last tunnel had been dug through; just the remaining 2 km stretch from its end to the pass had not been built. The tunnel partly collapsed in the following years. From 1939 to the mid-1960s, the unfinished, grassed-over road was only used for forestry purposes. Construction work resumed in the mid-1960s and the road was completed to the pass and opened to through traffic in 1967.