It is true that while in general Germans see their role as not only obeying laws but also enforcing them -- denouncing a car illegally parked or a branch illegally cut from a protected tree -- they display no similar zeal for reporting canine infractions like soiling city streets to the police.
That they did not always only obey orders.
So the people select magistrates (judges, kings, and the like) and so position them (presumably with respect to rank and wealth) that it will be in those magistrates' immediate interest not only to obey but to enforce the rules of justice throughout society.
As psychologist Erich Fromm recognized in his insightful book, On Disobedience: "If a man can only obey and not disobey, he is a slave; if he can only disobey and not obey, he is a rebel (not a revolutionary).
Their gist: Microsoft has not only fully obeyed, but gone beyond a 2004 European Commission anti-trust directive to share its technical information with rivals.
You may not like this rule, but what would happen if we only obey those regulations we agree with, asks historian Mary Beard.
One of the supervisors stated: "...nothing could be done based on the nursing process...it is expected that nurses only obey orders, give the drugs, monitor the blood pressures...but that they do not intervene independently".
That suggests you only obey the law when it obeys you.
