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https://www.prisonstudies.org/country/germany

I'd want to see a citation on that, only thing I could find so far is this quote "Peter Biesenbach, justice minister in Germany's most populous state North Rhine-Westphalia, said that over one-in-ten verdicts handed down in his state dealt with fare-dodgers."

I can't imagine that 1 in ten verdicts for fare dodging would result in one third of the prison population being fare dodgers.

This is wildly inaccurate.

The population of Germany is about 84m. The total prison population in Germany is 56557. [1]

What are you talking about?

[1]: https://www.prisonstudies.org/country/germany

Not OP but I believe they're talking about the total prison population and not the total population. They're saying that roughly 19,000 people (roughly 1/3 of 56,557) are in prison in Germany due to the inability to pay a fine that was given to them for riding on a train or bus without a ticket.