As for the war in the Kattegat, this year was calm. Otherwise, in 1941, the Allies began deploying larger four-engine bombers with greater range and higher bombing capacity than before. Following pressure from the German and British sides, Sweden allowed a foreign power plane to pass over Swedish territory without being shelled.

On January 18, the German transport ship Godfried Bueren sank after going on a mine south of Läsö.

On May 18, the German battleship Bismarck left Germany on its first mission. Together with Prinz Eugene, Allied ships were to be sunk in the Atlantic. On May 20, they passed together with the fighters Z-10, Z-16 and Z-23 north through the Kattegat, where the Swedish ship HMS Gotland discovered them outside Vinga and announced what they had seen to the Swedish military command in Stockholm. The message was intercepted by the British, who took up the hunt for Bismarck, which was sunk just over a week later, on 27 May.

On September 19, the fishing vessel Bunte Kuh sank after landing on a mine trap of British aircraft.

On December 7, the German ship Bahia ran aground off Varberg. The ship was repaired but torpedoed in April 1944 by a British submarine and sank.