Michael Kohlhaas is a novella by the German author Heinrich von Kleist, based on a 16th-century story of Hans Kohlhase. Kleist published fragments of the work in volume 6 of his literary journal Phöbus in June 1808. The complete work was published in the first volume of Kleist's Erzählungen (novellas) in 1810.

Bernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist was a German poet, dramatist, novelist, short story writer and journalist. His best known works are the theatre plays Das Käthchen von Heilbronn, The Broken Jug, Amphitryon and Penthesilea, and the novellas Michael Kohlhaas and The Marquise of O. Kleist died by suicide together with a close female friend who was terminally ill.