By the time their opponents were more experienced the Germans benefited from being on the defensive and all the force multipliers that implies, including ever shortening lines of supply and communication. But they were certainly not superior.
There really is no "benefit" from being in a defensive war, as the very description of that situation implies that you are losing the war, or are least in a strategic sense at a disadvantage (especially if you are the aggressor in the conflict).
That said, it still is no easy feat defending against better-equipped, better-supplied, numerically superior forces that in most cases are high in morale and never wanting in reserves. This was the Eastern Front from 1944-45. It took strategic genius, tactical creativity and zeal to keep the German line from entirely collapsing after Kursk. The fact that they lasted that long on what little was available is frankly astounding, even their adversaries and foreign historians have to concede. No amount of "force multipliers" accounts for the relatively slow advance of the Red Army westwards. The original German advance east in 1941 was much faster and less casualty intensive despite being grossly outnumbered, especially in armour.
The French and British were in a defensive war in 1940, the Polish in 1939, Russia in 1941 and so on. Unless you know how to use "defense in depth" to your advantage, being on the defensive in the mid-20th century was not a comfortable situation in the least.
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