The Klapperfeld police prison was considered a particularly unpleasant place of detention both by those who had not seen it from the inside and by those who had to get to know it from that perspective.

Compared to the Hammelsgasse remand prison, former prisoners repeatedly describe the situation in the Klapperfeld police prison as far more unpleasant. This is justified by the fact that it was cleaner in the Hammelsgasse remand prison, the food was apparently better and one could even borrow books from the in-house library.

Things were different in the Klapperfeld. Especially for the years 1942 to 1945, various sources point to particularly dramatic conditions. The prison was apparently constantly overcrowded, which was partly due to the fact that prisoners from other cities were housed there for some time before being transported on.

In a report from January 1944, a prison doctor describes the situation as so dramatic that he found even the short term incarceration an imposition and finally threatened to stop working there if there was no change.

The cells were hopelessly overcrowded, an unbearable stench emanated from the tubs that existed instead of toilets, vermin roamed the entire building and many of the prisoners wore nothing but rags.