German ballet director loses job over dog feces attack

The German ballet company director Marco Goecke was fired and faced a police investigation for attacking a female critic with dog feces after she wrote an unfavorable review.

Goecke, the chief of Hanover State Opera's ballet company, threw insults at her during the ballet premiere performance break, according to journalist Wiebke Hüster.

The verbal assault reportedly started from a review that Hüster had written.

"Goecke rubbed the dog feces hard and most brutally into my face," Hüster continued. "It was in an open dog plastic bag which usually is tied up with a knot."

"I was completely guileless when he approached me because he spoke calmly; otherwise, I would have turned away, but his bright red face showed his excitement," the journalist explained.

"The bystanders were paralyzed with shock while I was screaming and crying."

The director made amends with Hüster and all affected for his "absolutely unacceptable action."

"In retrospect, I clearly realize that this was a shameful act in the heat of the moment and an overreaction," following a "nervous strain of two premieres in quick succession" in The Hague on February 9 and Hanover on Saturday, he said in a statement.

Earlier, the 50-year-old told NDR that Hüster had been "throwing ****" at him "for years."

He revealed that his dachshund left feces in his dog bag, which he later put up to use against Hüster.

"Of course, I have to justify myself, and of course, it's not right that this happened in this opera house, in this public space, and of course, it's also a fact that spectators were frightened, and I'm incredibly sorry about that," Goecke told to the outlet.