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The reason the Germans did not develope and field a semi auto rifle as their main service rifle is economics. They had the 98 Mauser, and more importantly, they had the means to make 98 Mausers.

Yes, Hitler (and some others) felt the 98K was perfectly adequate and discouraged further rifle developement as a waste of resources.

The time, effort and money needed for a semi auto rifle was better spent designing and making tanks, aircraft, machine guns, and even U-boats.

Also don't forget that up until the end of 41 the Germans had been winning everywhere, and it wasn't until 43 that it was clear to some Germans that they would not win the war. Some Germans, especially the leadership never did believe Germany would not win, until the last few months of the war...

When you are winning, there is no pressing need to develope the next generation of weapons. When you are losing, its generally too late. THis is Victory Disease.

Germany, despite the fame of its Panzer units never was able to convert their armies fully to motorized transport, either. Horse drawn transport and artillery was the majority throughout the entire war. The success of the fully motorized units fully overshadowed the fact that the bulk of German land forces were not much ahead of WW I units in anything other than radios and machineguns.