This book appeals to students and scholars as a hermeneutic response to the initial publications of Martin Heidegger's Black Notebooks. The publication of the notebooks has caused wide-spread international debate amongst Heidegger scholars.They contain passages on Jewry that many claim are explicitly anti-Semitic propagating catchy philosophical expressions such as "being-historical anti-Semitism" and "metaphysical anti-Semitism".

This text, along with the help of Professor Francesco Alfieri, is the culmination of Professor Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann's (Heidegger's last private assistant) review of the Notebooks as a whole, and in particular, those passages that were the focus of the public eye. Together, these two authors have drawn up a comprehensive philological analysis of volumes GA 94 through GA 97 of the Black Notebooks. The authors reveal that seeing these books as ponderings ( berlegungen) and as observations (Anmerkungen) have been given little consideration. They reveal how Heidegger has placed these Notebooks at the conclusion of the Complete Edition and can only be comprehensible as read alongside his lectures and complete body of work.