Recently I've watched "Unsere Mutter, Unsere Vater" along with "Stalingrad" and "Walking With The Enemy". While some of those are fictionalized to varying degrees, they got me thinking, especially the latter: What was it like to be a Hungarian, Romanian, Italian or other Axis solider fighting alongside the Nazis in the largest invasion the world's ever seen?
I've read Wikipedia articles on them and seen passing references to various units here and there (for example, the Spanish Blue Division in Beevor's book on the Spanish Civil War), but I've never seen anything that focuses on any of them specifically. I find this kind of odd given how big of a role they played in certain events (the Romanians being overrun guarding the 6th Army's flank at Stalingrad, for example), and how big of a deal these deployments must have been in each respective country.
Can anyone point me to some documentaries, articles, books, etc that I can look at when I get a chance?
Campaign in Russia: The Waffen SS On the Eastern Front by Leon Degrelle
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Léon_Degrelle
Degrelle was a Wallonian Belgian who served in the 28th SS Volunteer Wallonian SS Division. He rose from being a grunt to command of the division. When asked on his deathbed if he had any regrets, he replied "Only that we lost."
His memoir is, as you might expect, heavy on anti-Slavic racism and light on descriptions of war crimes. Furthermore, it is published by the Institute for Historical Review, a revisionist firm that publishes works of Holocaust denial.
I was fortunate enough to get a copy second hand, so the IHR didn't get a dime from me. I'm sure you can find a PDF or used physical copy somewhere online. If you want to read primary source material from SS Combat Officers, you're going to have to take a risk. Nonetheless, it is still absolutely fascinating. His book gives a look into understand the mind of a collaborator.
Aside from that, first hand descriptions of the conditions on the Ostfront in and outside of combat is absolutely riveting. In one scene that stands out, his troops made a failed assault across a hayfield. Having fallen back, Degrelle notices something odd. As if it were a Looney Toon sketch, the SS men who had not been able to retreat had slowly but surely moved across the field by hiding in the haystacks. Eventually they moved in close enough to attack the Soviet positions they failed to take earlier that day.
That and more can be found in the memoir of a terrible, but undeniably intriguing individual.
Edit: My eyes, ow.... http://archive.org/stream/Campaign-in-Russia-Leon-Degrelle/Campaign-in-Russia-Leon-Degrelle_djvu.txt
Posting from mobile and my iPad won't let me copy the relevant section, but do a Ctr-F search for the following phrase and start reading for the haystack story: "To go to their aid was impossible."
Uh Anthony Beevor authored Stalingrad and goes into detail every now and then about the Romanian and Finnish divisions fighting on the Eastern Front.
Although it is expensive, Third Axis Fourth Ally: Romanian Armed Forces in the European War, 1941-1945 by Mark Axworthy is one of the standard accounts of Romania's wartime experience.
The various Osprey titles on the minor Axis power (e.g. Rumanian Aces of World War Two, Tanks of Hitler's Eastern Allies) are also worth examining, although their quality depends upon the author.