[1] With Karat's distinctive style of progressive rock, in 1978 Dreilich and his bandmates won the Grand Prize of the International Schlager Festival in Dresden, and toured to West Berlin.

Karat gained quickly in popularity, resulting in an audience across the border in West Germany, and even in many other countries of both Eastern and Western Europe.

That year, Karat was also awarded the National Prize of the GDR for Arts and Literature, and appeared on the popular West German television show Wetten, dass..?.

It carried on after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 with Dreilich as bandleader, finding new inspiration in more western-oriented pop rock styles.

The band returned to its progressive rock roots in the mid-1990s, and was making something of a comeback, when in October 1997, Dreilich collapsed on-stage in Magdeburg of a stroke.

A burial was held on 15 December 2004 in Berlin-Biesdorf, attended by a large gathering, among them many prominent musical colleagues from Germany and other countries.