After he made his arrangements to leave for the United States, Sackett and his wife faced the hot, dull summer months ahead. While awaiting their departure date, and with the social season over, they decided to tour Eastern Germany. In April 1930, soon after Sackett arrived in Berlin, Julius Curtius, the German foreign minister, had urged the ambassador to make an information gathering trip to East Prussia as soon as possible. Walter de Haas, who like other Foreign Ministry officials found the American congenial, pressed the issue and reported that Sackett was prepared to make the trip when he had the available time. The Sacketts were unable to get free for the excursion until August, but when they made the trip to the Polish Corridor and East Prussia, they were delighted with the experience. More than that, Sackett became deeply ingrained with the German view of the inequities of the Treaty of Versailles.

The Sacketts stayed at an ancient castle, Schloss Schönberg, and the East Elbian aristocracy went out of their way to impress the American diplomat with how unfair the granting of German land to the Polish nation had been. Nobility from forty miles around the castle drove in for a dinner in Sackett's honor on the night of his arrival. The ambassador found the aristocrats “delightful.” He wrote his sister: “I am sure you would like all these people very much and they are charmingly hospitable.”