The Great Depression allowed the party's popularity to grow even faster as impoverished Germans flocked to Hitler's banner. These policies proved popular among those embittered by the Treaty. Hitler based the Nazi platform on reversing the Treaty of Versailles, restrengthening the nation, and on a stab-in-the-back ( Dolchstoßlegende) notion that the German military did not 'lose' the war but was rather betrayed at a critical moment by traitorous civilians (Communists, Jews), thereby causing the war effort to fail. National Socialist German Workers' Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, abbreviated NSDAP), or later on Nazi Party. In September 19, 1919, Adolf Hitler, a World War 1 veteran, joined a small political party at a beer hall in Munich, Germany.