hi! there's lots of room for more contributions - particularly on non-American participants and treatment after the war - but you can get started on these previous posts

• How many US citizens of German descent fought for Germany in WW2? Thinking of this scene in Band of Brothers where the American soldiers meet a German POW... who speaks perfect English.

• In the series Band of Brothers during the post D-Day operations one of the German prisoners turns out to have been an American who had gone to Germany at the beginning of the war. Was this common?

• In the second episode of Band of Brothers, one of the characters encounters an American-born German soldier. Are there any actual records of Americans with German ancestry returning to Germany to fight for the Axis powers?

• Did any non-Germans join the Nazi Army during WWII?

• I keep hearing about people from other countries who were forcibly conscripted to fight for the Nazis or Soviets in WWII. Historically, what was conscription like in Europe?

• What fate awaited the Americans who volunteered for service in the Wehrmacht?

Beevor discusses this a little in "Stalingrad", with reference to the Russian 'Hiwis' (Hilfswilligers or volunteers) that were drafted into service by Germany. They were mostly shot if discovered by Russian troops.

The man in the film was Volksdeutsche - According to 1938 memorandum of the German Reich Chancellery: "people whose language and culture had German origins but who did not hold German citizenship"