A German shop assistant in a late-night convenience store chased away two armed robbers demanding money with the hose of a vacuum cleaner she was using to clean her shop in Berlin's Neukoelln district, police said on Wednesday.

One of the two would-be robbers was brandishing a pistol and demanded she turn over the money from her cash register in the attempted robbery just after midnight on Tuesday.

But police said the woman, 59, stormed towards the duo and aimed the hose attachment of her switched-on vacuum cleaner at them.

"They then fled without the loot," Berlin police said in a statement.