In the territories annexed during the Partitions of Poland, German authorities sought to limit the number of ethnic Poles by their forced Germanisation and by a new wave of settlement by German colonists at their expense.[1] Beginning with the Kulturkampf, laws were enacted to restrict Polish culture, religion, language, and rights to property. Bismarck initiated the Prussian deportations of 1885-1890, which affected some 30,000 Poles and Jews living in Germany who did not have German citizenship.