Austrian Erwin Kohn won the 1936 World Doubles Table Tennis Championship (with Richard Bergman), and his Austrian team won the Swathling Cup, the men's team World Table Tennis Championship.

In 1932 and 1935, Kohn took Bronze honors in Men's World Singles. In 1933 (with Paul Flussmann) and 1934 (with Miroslav Hamr), he earned Bronze medals in men's World Doubles.

Kohn was Austria's national table tennis champion by the age of 16. A year later, in 1929, his Austrian national team was the silver medallist at the World Championships. Kohn and his teammates won the silver medal again in 1934, and were bronze finishers in 1932, 1933 and 1935.

In 1938, at the outset of WWII, Kohn escaped to England, then emigrated to Argentina where he dominated table tennis between 1940 and 1952.