Before the Second World War explicitly began with the Nazi German, then later Soviet (Russian) invasions of Poland in September 1939, Germany had already absorbed Austria in the Anschluß of 1938, then the Czechoslovakian lands of Bohemia and Moravia. Meanwhile, Italy, Germany and the Soviet Union were involved in the Spanish Civil War, (1936–1939), and Italy had conquered Ethiopia (1935–1936) and Albania (1939).