The French are clashing with youths again. It looks like the Germans are clashing with youths as well. No, wait...those are neo-Nazis and skinheads. My mistake.
The dispute in Germany came at the Halbe cemetery. The newspapers do a disservice to the soldiers buried there by calling them Nazis. Most were Wehrmacht - regular Army- not SS. And the Wehrmacht by April 1945, was full of boy-soldiers. It's also inaccurate to say that most of the 28,000 soldiers there died in one of the "last stands against the Soviet army's advance on Berlin."
The Battle of Halbe was all about generals defying Hitler's orders for them to bring their men to Berlin, and instead trying to lead their men west to American lines in order to surrender. In one sector alone, from the opposite bank, our Ninth Army saw the Elbe turn into the River Styx as soldiers and civilians took to the water in anything that would float, while thousands waited for their turn to cross over the debris of the demolished Tangermuende bridge. In retrospect, these folks had every good reason to flee for their lives toward the West.
The clash with police took place on the eve of Germany's "Day of Mourning, an unofficial holiday on which Germany remembers its war dead and those of other nations," which I think is part of the problem. The Germany I was stationed in had a holiday for everything. I cannot fathom why the Germans still can't get a sanction to mourn the deaths of their own ill-used soldiers.