Nikolai Skoblin has played key role in the joint operation by Germany and NKVD against Soviet Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who, along with other senior Red Army commanders, was tried and executed on orders from Joseph Stalin in 1937. Skoblin contacted Reinhard Heydrich who manufactured documents about Tukhachevsky being a German spy, which were transferred to the Soviet top leadership by Skoblin. This story was originally uncovered by Soviet intelligence defector Walter Krivitsky in his 1939 book "In Stalin's Secret Service"; Walter Schellenberg in his memoirs published in 1956 wrote about Germany's intentional denunciation of Tukhachevsky, with Edvard Beneš being used a channel of this disinformation passed to Stalin.