Re: "Lang lebe der König" in a Katte drama from 1914 - the date is almost too perfect, because that's the mentality which got us into WWI all over. (I'm now imagining the ending of Heinrich Mann's novel Der Untertan, also published in 1914 before the publisher had to stop because of war censorship, and the film version by Wolfgang Staudte culminating in a mightly thunderstorm blowing all the Wilhelminians away while "The Subject" Diederich Heßling clings to holding his Hohenzollern-praising nationalistic speech...
Otoh, I wouldn't be surprised if the Katte/Wilhelmine trope shows up even earlier than that. Not only does historical drama love its invented love stories in general, but the male code of behavior changed in the 19th century so much (no more 18th century emo, and definitely no more high heels and colorful fashion!) while simultanously the cult of Fritz reigned along with censorship that I could see people coming up with this to premptively remove the slightest suspicion that the big national hero could have been romantically attached to a man (and vice versa). I mean, we're talking about a country where Voltaire's memoirs weren't allowed to be reprinted until after WWI. (They had been translated into German and printed in 1784 already, but post Napoleonic Prussia and then Germany certainly did not allow any more of this French slander of The GREAT to be sold.)
Re: Strange historical fiction among other things
Re: "Lang lebe der König" in a Katte drama from 1914 - the date is almost too perfect, because that's the mentality which got us into WWI all over. (I'm now imagining the ending of Heinrich Mann's novel Der Untertan, also published in 1914 before the publisher had to stop because of war censorship, and the film version by Wolfgang Staudte culminating in a mightly thunderstorm blowing all the Wilhelminians away while "The Subject" Diederich Heßling clings to holding his Hohenzollern-praising nationalistic speech...
Otoh, I wouldn't be surprised if the Katte/Wilhelmine trope shows up even earlier than that. Not only does historical drama love its invented love stories in general, but the male code of behavior changed in the 19th century so much (no more 18th century emo, and definitely no more high heels and colorful fashion!) while simultanously the cult of Fritz reigned along with censorship that I could see people coming up with this to premptively remove the slightest suspicion that the big national hero could have been romantically attached to a man (and vice versa). I mean, we're talking about a country where Voltaire's memoirs weren't allowed to be reprinted until after WWI. (They had been translated into German and printed in 1784 already, but post Napoleonic Prussia and then Germany certainly did not allow any more of this French slander of The GREAT to be sold.)