Although there is no precise answer to your question there are a few noteworthy things than can be mentioned as indicators towards understanding the state of affairs in Germany during Bismarck, Weimar and eventually Hitler. I do agree with what Zev says that anti-Semitism was largely a race issue, but that doesn’t answer the question. By definition anti-Semitism is racism, the reasons for which are complex, the best way to answer the question posed in the OP is through looking at how anti-Semitism was exercised and what the fallacious justifications where given.
First of all anti-Semitism in post Roman Europe has to be divided into three periods, namely the Age of the Christian Empires, the early Age of Nationalism and the culmination of Nationalism after the revolutions of 1848.
Under the Christian Empires the prosecution of Jews was a highly religious matter in its execution. The roots for this irrational hatred are of course more complex and certainly have much to do with all kinds of things such as the need for scapegoats during hardships, envy along the lines of coveting perceived riches, lack of understanding and just irrational hatred of things that are different. Various princes across Europe used these sentiments from time to time to turn the population against the Jews forcing the Jews into a semi nomadic lifestyle.
As it was the Jewish population grew mostly in the Eastern parts of the continent during this time. Anti-Semitism was widespread across the continent, but Eastern Europe for various reasons was less destructive in the prosecution of Jews, partially this could arguably be traced to a more general tendency towards nomadic traditions. This changes towards the end of the golden age of the Empires when religious strife in all directions starts tearing up Central and Eastern Europe. The Jews get caught in the midst of the Reformation Wars where obviously they have no side and no reason to take sides. You can safely say that during this time the prosecution of the Jews takes a very religious nature, as does the prosecution of Catholics and Protestants. The big difference is of course that the Jews are not affiliated with any of the great powers and as such are just victims and not persecutors themselves. Towards the end of this era Western Europe sees a mild decline in anti-Semitism while the religious strife in the Eastern half also increases persecution against Jews.
In 1648 the peace of Westphalia ushers in the Age of Nationalism. The religious and political map of Central and Western starts to change. As the religious divisions gel within the increasingly independent national units the Jews are once more stuck in between and become a nation-less people while people of other affiliations change in the opposite directions. The same rationalizations toward hatred are used and religion continues to be part of those, but it is slowly supplanted with an us and them mentality based on perceived nationality. This attitude eventually culminates with the creation of the real Nationalism in the latter part of the 19th century. Remarkably anti-Semitism declines at the same rate as nation-states solidify and stabilize. This is also true for Germany. After the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 Germany is unified as a country for the first time. In this more stabilized environment Germany evolves from being part of a largely anti-Semitic region that encompasses the old Holy Roman Empire and the Habsburg Empire into being a national union that is far more tolerant towards Judaism than her sisters in the East that continue to strive for national independence all the way up to the end of WWI. This is what is quite remarkable in an atrocious way considering what follows.
By the time of the First World War the German Jews are largely integrated into the growing middle class and some historians have argued that Germany is in fact less anti-Semitic than any other place in Europe at the time. One has to understand that compared to Western Europe, Germany, or Central Europe rather, has a fairly large portion of Jews. In the East anti-Semitism continues to increase with the rational that Jewry is equal to the opposite of Nationalism since it transgresses national borders. The German Jews however start themselves to integrate as Germans of just yet another religious affiliation. This has been argued to be possible partly due to the continued Christian diversity in Germany, which forces through a secular rather than religious feeling of unity. This does not change after WWI and even during the hardships of the Weimar republic hardcore anti-Semitism is relegated to the extreme fringes of the social and political spectrum. Nevertheless anti-Semitism is a problem throughout Europe, including Germany at the time.
The Nazis, and especially Hitler imports the East-European idea that Judaism is equal to internationalism and therefore opposed to the Nation. Hitler and the other architects of Nazism use race as a definition of nationality, and stipulate that everything that is opposed to this must be destroyed. This does not catch on in the population very well. The election of the Nazis would certainly not have been possible if there wasn’t for latent anti-Semitism, but it is by no means seen as one of the brighter sides of the coin that is being flipped by the large majority. Mostly it is rationalized away as just propaganda and in fact Hitler’s first attempt at rallying the German people against the Jews in 1934 fails blatantly. It is only by a continuous erosion of the Human Rights of the Jews and a relentless propaganda pounding that anti-Semitism can flourish. During this time the fallacious rational that is given for hating the Jews is that they oppose the racially based nation-state by polluting it with foreign blood and that they have political agenda to overthrow the ‘righteous’ races. The perceived (and erroneously so) riches of the Jews is used as part of this in order to create an environment of jealousy and suspicion. Even these efforts fail in rallying the non-Jewish German people as united front against Jewry. Hitler’s disappointment with the lack of participation by the general population in the mass murder and vandalism of ‘The Night of Breaking Glass’ November 9 1938 sees the active persecution of Jews delegated exclusively to the party machinery.
In fact as we distance ourselves to the terrible events of the Holocaust it is becoming increasingly clear that anti-Semitism and support for the Holocaust was pretty much even across much of the occupied territory and worse in the East than in Germany and the West. The large difference between Germany and for instance France under Nazi rule is the lack of resistance for which one must search for more complex reasons.
Sparc