Philip K. Dick's 1962 novel The Man In The High Castle imagined a world in which the Axis nations of Germany and Japan won World War II—and won so decisively that they overtook the United States. To promote its TV series version of the book, Amazon Studios perhaps took that premise a little too literally by filling a New York City subway car with Nazi symbols on Monday.

By Tuesday, after photos and criticisms about the ad campaign had spread via social media, and New York mayor Bill De Blasio had called them "irresponsible and offensive," the New York Metro Transit Authority had confirmed the ad campaign's closure. A Variety report quoted MTA spokesperson Kevin Ortiz as saying, "Amazon has just decided to pull the ads." Amazon did not immediately respond to questions from Ars about the report and the campaign's closure.

As Twitter photos reveal, the ad campaign covered many subway benches on the MTA's S line with giant, flag-styled designs; one of those combined an American flag, a Nazi Eagle, and an Iron cross, while the other retouched Japan's war flag variant with American colors and stars. Next to these were window posters telling people to watch Man In The High Castle's entire first season on Amazon Video beginning November 20. (The full-train ads, which also coated those S trains' exteriors, didn't appear to mention that Amazon also sold the book version in both paper and Kindle editions.)

Before the Amazon ad campaign was pulled, A New York Magazine report quoted MTA spokesperson Adam Lisberg as saying the ads did "not violate any of the content-neutral ad standards that our board adopted earlier this year."