Amazon has decided to remove ads for its new drama “The Man in the High Castle” from New York City subway cars, after the Nazi imagery has stirred controversy.
The ads, which were featured in 42nd St. subway shuttle cars, were scheduled to run from Nov. 16 to Dec. 14, Gothamist reports. They also featured imagery evoking Imperial Japan.
The Anti-Defamation League’s New York regional director Evan Bernstein criticized the ads for not providing significant context for the premise of the series.
“On the television program, which explains this is the notion of an America controlled by Hitler, you get that context. On the train, seeing the American flag paired with a Nazi symbol is viscerally offensive, because there is no context as to what it means,” Bernstein said. “The fact that the flag is spread across the seats only compounds the effect.
“The Man in the High Castle,” which premiered Nov. 20 on Amazon and is based on the Philip K. Dick novel of the same title, depicts an alternate history in which the Allied forces lost World War II, with the Nazis controlling the East Coast, the Japanese controlling the West Coast, and a neutral zone existing in the middle of the country.