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In most cases you can indeed remove the nuts at the top of the shock - what has been missed from the DIY and is most important is that you do not allow the shaft coming out of the top of the shock to turn. Some gas filled shock absorbers can undo "themselves" internally causing sudden loss of gas pressure and possible fluid too. At best it is just messy - at worst (really extreme worst case) you could damage yourself or your car.
The point about using a jack under the control arm is twofold
1) The jack is there so you keep control of the situation - you can move the control arm up and down to help get the shock absorber IN and OUT - I guess you plan to fit a new one!
2) When the shock is removed there is nothing (much) stopping the spring from pushing the lower control arm into the ground. Whilst many rear springs on Mercedes vehicles are not as vicious as the front ones they can still potentially cause damage to you or the car.
The point of the exercise is to fix one thing and not break several things trying to fix the one...
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