Yes, I remember back in Beatles fandom dozens and dozens of people (who hadn't read them and were just paraphrasing other people) insisting that Joe Orton's diaries include a description of attending a gay orgy Brian Epstein (the Beatles manager) threw. Having read the diaries, I kept saying: "No he doesn't. Orton's description of the party in question makes it sound eminently repectable and really really dull. (And Orton wasn't averse to describing gay orgies!) People did not believe me, because the other story was just more interesting. And thus it went.
Anyway, having read the summary of the content and the press voices: seems Kloosterhuis (the author/editor) came to the same conclusion like Fontane, only more so, i.e. that FW, not the military tribunal, was the one following the law as it existed then, and meant his "fiat justicia" etc.; by "only more so" I mean that one press excerpt adds that by ordering Katte's execution in front of Fritz, FW was doing further justice to Katte by showing all the world who the true criminal and the one guilty of Katte's death was, i.e. his protected by royal privilege son. (This was definitely not Fontane's interpretation, though he also thought the tribunal's lighter sentence for Katte was clearly informed by both consideration of the crown prince and that by the letter of the law, Katte was guilty was charged. (But then so was Fritz.)
There's no mention in the press excerpts and summaries of an earlier attempt at desertion by Katte, but then, there wouldn't be, since the key question the book seems to be revolving around was: was FW justified in his actions? (With Klosterhuis' answer being, yes, he was.)
ETA: Forgot to say: note that in all these discussions I've read as to what motivated FW and whether he did, by his own standards and the rule of the land, do justice in the Katte case, no one mentions poor Demoiselle Ritter, simultanously condemmned to public whippings and a life time imprisonment for the the crime of taking a few strolls with the crown prince and playing music with him. Possibly because FW bending the law (of his time, not the modern one) in this case is impossible to deny. Yes, Prussian law did have a clause about public whippings for prostitutes. (That wasn't much practised, but was there.) But he'd just had confirmed Dorothea Ritter was a virgin. Hence no debates about the legality of her conviction, or the impetus behind it.
Re: Katte
Anyway, having read the summary of the content and the press voices: seems Kloosterhuis (the author/editor) came to the same conclusion like Fontane, only more so, i.e. that FW, not the military tribunal, was the one following the law as it existed then, and meant his "fiat justicia" etc.; by "only more so" I mean that one press excerpt adds that by ordering Katte's execution in front of Fritz, FW was doing further justice to Katte by showing all the world who the true criminal and the one guilty of Katte's death was, i.e. his protected by royal privilege son. (This was definitely not Fontane's interpretation, though he also thought the tribunal's lighter sentence for Katte was clearly informed by both consideration of the crown prince and that by the letter of the law, Katte was guilty was charged. (But then so was Fritz.)
There's no mention in the press excerpts and summaries of an earlier attempt at desertion by Katte, but then, there wouldn't be, since the key question the book seems to be revolving around was: was FW justified in his actions? (With Klosterhuis' answer being, yes, he was.)
ETA: Forgot to say: note that in all these discussions I've read as to what motivated FW and whether he did, by his own standards and the rule of the land, do justice in the Katte case, no one mentions poor Demoiselle Ritter, simultanously condemmned to public whippings and a life time imprisonment for the the crime of taking a few strolls with the crown prince and playing music with him. Possibly because FW bending the law (of his time, not the modern one) in this case is impossible to deny. Yes, Prussian law did have a clause about public whippings for prostitutes. (That wasn't much practised, but was there.) But he'd just had confirmed Dorothea Ritter was a virgin. Hence no debates about the legality of her conviction, or the impetus behind it.