Michael Prawdin was the pseudonym of Michael Charol (20 January 1894 – 23 December 1970),[1] a Russian-German historical writer.
Born in present-day Ukraine, Charol came to Germany after the Russian Revolution.[2] He studied in Germany,[3] and wrote in German. In 1934, he made a plea for the 'factual novel'.[4]
Prawdin made himself an international reputation with two books on Genghis Khan. The Nazi bureaucrat Heinrich Himmler sufficiently admired the books that he ordered the publication of a one-volume edition in 1938, a copy of which was given to every SS leader; the book appears to have encouraged Adolf Hitler to claim inspiration from Genghis Khan.[2]