That's simply not true. Liberalism thrives under apathy. But when locals become active and begin to resist liberal rules, the fascists operate as a political counter to popular leftism.
I would say liberalism creates the apathy that leads to populism on both the left and the right.
Whether it's Franco's Spain or Pinochet's Chile or Park's Korea, fascism is a social tool to mobilize a population against itself at the height of unrest.
I think that's a bit of a reductive way to view how fascism develops. Calling it a social tool implies that there is some kind of puppet master wielding it. In reality most of the time fascism is just aided by liberals who think they can control or ally with them because they often share cultural similarities. However there are also examples of liberals, and leftist of all types creating popular fronts against aspiring fascist regimes.
Hitler came to power amidst decades of riots, strikes, and mass migrations.
Again, you are referencing a tiny portion of the population. You are also misconstruing the time in which these events occured. The origins of the Nazi party developed from the DAP, which was started in 1919 as an ultra nationalist, antisemitism, and anti communist party. In 1928 they only had less than 3 percent of the vote. It wasn't until after the great depression began that they started to actually become more popular with regular German people.
From their origins to their popularization there were oppositional riots and strikes from the left, but from a relatively small portion of the public, mostly in Berlin. However the majority of the public were still mostly center left and center right parties who were uninterested in confronting the rise of political violence from the right. From 1918-1933 there were over 350 political assassination committed by the right compared to around 20 from the left, and the left were generally prosecuted to a much higher degree.