Sorbs

Sorbs (Upper Sorbian: Serbja; Lower Sorbian: Serby; German: Sorben pronounced [ˈzɔʁbn̩] ), also known as Lusatian Serbs, are a West Slavic ethnic group indigenous to parts of Lusatia located in the German states of Saxony and Brandenburg. Sorbs traditionally speak the Sorbian languages, which are closely related to Polish, Czech, and Slovak. Upper Sorbian and Lower Sorbian are officially recognized minority languages in Germany. In the Early Middle Ages, the Sorbs formed their own principality, which later shortly became part of the early West Slavic Samo's Empire and Great Moravia, as were ultimately conquered by the East Francia (Sorbian March) and Holy Roman Empire (Saxon Eastern March, Margravate of Meissen, March of Lusatia). From the High Middle Ages, they were ruled at various times by the closely related Poles and Czechs, as well as the more distant Germans and Hungarians. Due to a gradual and increasing assimilation between the 17th and 20th centuries, virtually all Sorbs also spoke German by the early 20th century. In the newly created German nation state of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, policies were implemented in an effort to Germanize the Sorbs. These policies reached their climax under the Nazi regime, who denied the existence of the Sorbs as a distinct Slavic people by referring to them as "Sorbian-speaking Germans". The community is divided religiously between Roman Catholicism (the majority) and Lutheranism. The former Minister President of Saxony Stanislaw Tillich is of Sorbian origin.