@tucsonmom
One thing to keep in mind is that Germany didn’t have a very democratic tradition before the Weimar Republic. Not too surprising considering it was preceded by a heavily authoritarian militaristic monarchical regime and in the mid-latter part of WWI, became an effective military dictatorship under Generals Von Hindenberg and Ludendorff.
The harshness of that dictatorship, deprivation from the war/blockade, and the Naval high command’s inclination to take their sailor’s lives for granted in ordering them and their ships to sally forth into a naval battle even when it was apparent the war was lost and government attempting to negotiate an armistice sparked a massive naval munity which effectively forced Kaiser Wilhelm II to abdicate and several Revolutions/uprisings which topped local monarchs/governments before the military establishment and far-right officers/soldiers in the freikorps harshly put down those uprisings with extreme prejudice.
Even in defeat, the much reduced German army(Reichswehr) was so powerful that it was effectively a state-within-a-state unaccountable to anyone…including the official Weimar Republic civilian government officials. When the Kapp Putsch was initiated by right-wing military officers and civilian sympathizers because the defense minister attempted to disband two powerful freikorp units, it nearly succeeded because when the civilian government attempted to ask the military nominally under their command to intervene, they flatly refused with the sentiment “Reichswehr do not shoot Reichswehr”.
This meant despite the Weimar Republic’s being an official democracy, it was a very weak one which had to be wary of the powerful conservative military and civilian establishments constantly trying to undermine it. This was a reason why the German military/police/courts of the period was so uneven in its treatment/punishments of left and right-wing groups which factored into the emboldening of the latter…including the Nazis.
Even then, there were protests…but this blatant unevenhandedness by the shadowly conservative military and civilian establishment…including LEOs in favoring right-wing groups over left-wing ones…including those who merely wanted to support a moderate democratic government almost always met with violence. This was only underscored by the kid-give treatment coup plotting military officers and Nazis like Hitler received in the courts and from their jailers(if they were even jailed!) after their attempted Beer Hall Putsch in contrast to union protests or even civilians heckling Reichswehr/Freikorps units leaving after a failed Putch who were met with harsh violence(i.e. firing military rifles and machine guns into those union protestors/civilian hecklers.
And even then, many continued to protest against the far-right and the Nazis at far greater risks to themselves/their families. And after the Nazi takeover, those who weren’t immediately arrested continued to resist the Nazi regime by hiding/facilitating the escape of Jews and other groups targeted for persecution. However, one must also keep in mind that.
Unfortunately, they were a tiny minority compared to the much more numerous “Good Germans” who stood by and did nothing or worse, supported the regime and its actions, often in the name of “law and order”.
And a reason why after the war many young schoolchildren in Germany and abroad…including the US are taught about the history of the “Good Germans” and how even the ones who did nothing ended up being considered complicit in the crimes of the Nazi regime.