AHC/WI: Italy asks for/obtains Crimea after successful Barbarossa?

Crimea had at one point been a territory of Genoa, an Italian city state that existed throughout the Medieval and Early Modern eras. It lost control of this territory in the late 1400's.

However, lack of territorial claims didn't exactly halt German march in WWII. Italy contributed significant amounts of troops to Operation Barbarossa (according to Wiki, 235,000 in the start of the campaign). OTL, the Italian army in Russia was destroyed at Stalingrad, but they had been an actually efficient fighting force before then.

What if, after a successful Barbarossa (A vanilla one, like Soviets pushed beyond the Urals, partisans crushed, there are hundreds of Barbarossa Victories on this site), Italy asks for Crimea to be granted to them due to their contributions? Most likely Hitler would laugh the Italians out of the room, but if Italy had crushed Yugoslavia quickly and then not had the fiasco in Greece, Hitler might actually be inclined to at least enter into some kind of negotiation.

What would a Fascist Italian government in Crimea look like? My guess is that since Italy was at least marginally less cruel towards (European) minorities than Germany was, it would not give over the population to Germany. However, I could also see population exchanges where Italians are settled in Crimea, and the local Crimeans are shipped somewhere else (Somalia?) to make the land truly "Italian" so the Germans would have a harder time justifying demanding it from them.

What do you all think?
 
The Crimea wasn't part of Mussolini's plans. The only way to get Hitler to give it up would be for Italian forces to somehow capture and occupy the Crimea before Germany could.

Even so, with Turkey controlling the Turkish Straits it would be difficult for Italy to reinforce the Crimea, and it would be a huge burden for Italy to hold on to.

This would be beyond Italy's capabilities at the time and probably belong in the ASB forum.
 
The Crimea wasn't part of Mussolini's plans. The only way to get Hitler to give it up would be for Italian forces to somehow capture and occupy the Crimea before Germany could.

Even so, with Turkey controlling the Turkish Straits it would be difficult for Italy to reinforce the Crimea, and it would be a huge burden for Italy to hold on to.

This would be beyond Italy's capabilities at the time and probably belong in the ASB forum.

Perhaps if Turkey ended up on the chopping block with an Axis invasion, Italy could seize the Straits? (Though as aforementioned, it would take a more competent Italian military, so no Greek/Yugoslav debacle)
 
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