It had launched a search for a new chair this month after Hans-Joerg Vetter resigned for health reasons.
Germany's second-biggest lender is shedding thousands of jobs and closing hundreds of branches. Its largest shareholder is the German government, after a bailout during the last financial crisis.
The search process had a hiccup last week when one candidate for the seat unexpectedly resigned from the board.
As a result, the bank postponed its annual general meeting scheduled for early May.
Gottschalk spent 15 years on the supervisory board of Germany's DZ Bank and served as its chair from 2010 to 2018.
He will be nominated to Commerzbank's supervisory board at the annual general meeting, and immediately after the meeting, he will be elected chairman, Commerzbank said.
The bank still has an open board seat. Commerzbank said it expected "a swift solution" for the vacancy "so that the AGM can be scheduled at short notice".
(Reporting by Tom Sims and Patricia Uhlig; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
