The financial crisis of 1931 threatened to bring down the Brüning government. Ambassador Sackett was acutely aware of the danger for the Weimar Republic and of the opportunity the crisis presented to Hitler. More determined than ever to aid his friend Brüning and thwart Hitler, Sackett intervened to help preserve the Weimar Republic. He took advantage of his leave of absence in the United States to emphasize the depth of the impending crisis, and when it struck he used his influence with President Hoover to urge him to intervene to help Brüning. Sackett's reports to the State Department were a decisive part of the American deliberations leading to the announcement of the Hoover Moratorium, and in Washington he participated in the complex discussions that prompted the president to act. When Sackett returned to Berlin, he engaged in the trying negotiations with the Germans and again went beyond his instructions in the interest of helping Brüning.

The crisis began in May 1931, when, first in Vienna and then in Berlin, major banks began to fail. The problem quickly spread throughout Europe, creating heavy new burdens for nations already beset by deepening economic depression. President Hoover decided that the United States would have to intervene. Faced with a financial crisis of international proportions, Hoover offered the European powers a one-year holiday in the payment of war debts owed to the United States in exchange for the Entente Allies agreeing to forgo reparations payments from Germany during the same period.