A 108-year-old encrypted German military message from World War I has reportedly been deciphered with the help of OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra.
AI developer Prinz selected the message from a collection of historically unsolved ciphers and used Astra to analyze the encryption. The message had been sent to German High Command and was encoded using a complex cipher system that relied on changing keyword-based grids.
Astra reportedly identified “TRUPPENVERSCHIEBUNG” as the key needed to decode the message.
Translated into English, the message warned that an English cruiser had arrived at Sevastopol and that an Allied squadron was expected to follow on November 26.
The AI then compared the decoded information with historical military records. Those records showed that the British cruiser HMS Canterbury arrived in Sevastopol on November 24, 1918, while an Allied squadron followed on November 26, closely matching the information contained in the decrypted message.
The apparent breakthrough demonstrates how modern AI tools can assist researchers in analyzing historical encryption and revisiting mysteries that have remained unresolved for more than a century.