"The President's Economic Mission to Germany and Austria" was the title of a series of reports commissioned by U.S. President Harry S. Truman and written by former President Herbert Hoover. Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was the thirty-third President of the United States (1945–1953); as Vice-President, he succeeded to the office upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. ... Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964), the 31st President of the United States (1929-1933), was a successful mining engineer, humanitarian, and administrator. ...

Based on Hoover's previous experience with Germany at the end of World War I, in the winter of 1946 - 47 President Harry S. Truman selected Hoover to do a tour of Europe, focusing on Germany and Austria in order to ascertain the food situation of the occupied nations. Hoover toured what was to become West Germany in Field Marshall Herman Goering's old train coach and produced a number of reports sharply critical of U.S. occupation policy. Combatants Allied Powers: British Empire French Empire Italy Russian Empire Kingdom of Serbia United States Central Powers: Austria-Hungary Bulgaria German Empire Ottoman Empire Commanders Douglas Haig Sir John Jellicoe Ferdinand Foch Nikolay II Nikolay Yudenich Radomir Putnik Woodrow Wilson John Pershing Wilhelm II Reinhard Scheer Franz Josef I Oskar... Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was the thirty-third President of the United States (1945–1953); as Vice-President, he succeeded to the office upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. ... Hermann Göring Hermann Wilhelm Göring (also spelled Hermann Goering in English) (January 12, 1893–October 15, 1946) was a prominent and early member of the Nazi party, founder of the Gestapo, and one of the main architects of Nazi Germany. ...

The economy of Germany had "...sunk to the lowest level in a hundred years"^[1].

Hoover proposed a changed economic occupation policy in his reports, if nothing else but for the sake of sparing the American taxpayers the burden of supporting Central Europe indefinitely.

Notes

1. ^ Michael R. Beschloss, The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941-1945 (2002) pg.277

External links

• Truman library document collection
• Herbert Hoover's 1946 - 1947 factfinding mission to Germany. (Report No.1), (Report No.3)