Antisemtism wasn't the invention of the Nazis. It was more the vehicle how they tied in different segments of society.

A brief history on Antisemitism: Political antisemitism (antisemitism as a political program) started with Karl Lueger, Mayor of Vienna. He was a Christ-social (translation is probably wonky, a Catholic Conservative) who used antisemitic rhetoric for his political agenda. Side note: Hitler was an ardent fan of Lueger.

Lueger was the first who made a political campaign out of hating Jews (and others), and basically made it "normal" to talk about the Jewish question (what to do with Jews in a nation state?). He and others (e.g. Georg von Schönerer (German nationalist, antisemite and anti-catholic)) were putting antisemitism at the forefront and are among the factors to raise antisemitic thought.

Antijudaism (based on religion) was "always" a mainstay for the Catholic South Germany (Bavaria, Austria, etc.). Legends about ursury, poisoning of wells and how the Jews killed Jesus were rampant, long before Fascism existed. This is part of the reason how religious people at least partly accepted/ associated with the anti-clerical Nazis. This strain of antisemitism wasn't as prominent in the protestant North, but still not an extremely strange thought.

After World War 1, right wingers (various strains) invented the "Dolchstoßlegende". It states that the war only was lost, because of fifth columns in the German countries, and that they weren't beaten in the field. It is wrong, but still gained a lot of traction. This fifth column partly consisted of Jews. Another raise for antisemitic thought among broad populations.

Another thing is that conspiracy theories about Jewish world dominance etc. were rampant. The protocols of the Elders of Zion was a pamphlet probably given out by (Russian) Zarist secret police at the turn of the century and made the rounds in Europe and gained also a lot of traction in Germany. "Race theorists", esoterical philosophers etc. also jumped on it. These people later associated very much with the Nazis and had influence, and direct high ranking members. E.g. Rosenberg.

Antisemitism was very large among various right wing factions, but not solely. Antisemitism also happened in Social democratic parties, but was more isolated and not in the political program. But it is still a binding factor for parts of the leftist factions.

And with the rise of the Nazis they really hammered all of these various antisemitic strains in. Antisemitic propaganda ranged from "they took our jobs" to "they are the reason we lost" to picking up older christian antisemitism and conspiracy theories.

So to come full circle again, the Nazis merely picked up various antisemitic thought and made it into a semi-coherent program. Antisemitism is rather the reason why the Nazis where pretty succesfull, than something that was hurting them and had to be "teached" to the German population.