Fundamental group and pluridifferentials on compact K\"ahler manifolds

A compact K"ahler manifold is shown to be simply-connected if its `symmetric cotangent algebra’ is trivial. Conjecturally, such a manifold should even be rationally connected. The relative version is also shown: a proper surjective connected holomorphic map between connected complex manifolds induces an isomorphism of fundamental groups if its smooth fibres are as above, and if the domain is K"ahler.