Kant never effectively addressed the question of the independent reality of "things" (thing in itself). He supplied an outline of the epistemologic structure of human thinking that, based as it was on forms and concepts that were transcendental i.e. universal and necessary and therefore a priori, gave as close as he believed we could get to objective "truth". Because we are hardwired to apply the pure forms of intuition (space and time) and the schematized pure concepts of the understanding (rules by which we make judgments, in conjunction with the pure forms of intuition and empiric intuitions and concepts from sensibility) to "experience" our world, we are able to engage in a meaningful discourse with others of our type who share the same hard wiring.
This means that space and time and the schematized pure concepts, such as cause and effect, may have no independent reality. We can never know since we can never travel beyond the limitations our minds impose upon us. Of course this means that "things", as they really are, are closed off to knowing. So how does Heidegger make use of Kant to come to what is a "thing"?
In fact Heidegger would be much like a transcendental idealist if he were concerned with the term. It is his orientation that is different. For Heidegger the issue is not the epistemic makeup of humans but the ontological structure of human Being (Dasein). If Kant is simply turned upside down he is the perfect compliment. Kant is describing the structure of Dasein's knowing, and is saying that we have access to this, through logic and the necessary character of the transcendental forms and concepts, that we can never have to the external world (one can argue whether the pure forms of intuition and the pure concepts of the understanding are really "things" in themselves and if so why can we know them). Kant is therefore describing an aspect of Dasein's ontologic structure.
This same privileged access to self knowledge is what Heidegger would like to say about Dasein's exploration of its Being. We have an immediate access to it that we cannot necessarily have to other things. The "things" of the world take their importance and relevance, for us, from their relationships to Dasein's projects. Their independent reality is not as important or is not knowable. The importance of "things in themselves" lies in their importance to Dasein- not in their reality independent of Dasein. This finishes the circle then. Kant says we can know the truth of the basic epistemic structure of human Being (one of its ontologic characteristics) but not the truth of other beings. Heidegger says we can know other ontologic aspects of human Being and that the importance of other beings is settled in what they say about Dasein and not in themselves.
This book gives a fair picture of Kant's basic theory from the Critique of Pure Reason, but through a Heideggerian lens. I personally would not read it to understand Kant, it is at once too simplified and too eccentric in its view. Its importance is in demonstrating how the thinking of the two philosophers meshes when their emphasis is so far apart.
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