  We construct harmonic Riemannian submersions that are retractions from
symmetric spaces of noncompact type onto their rank-one totally geodesic
subspaces. Among the consequences, we prove the existence of a non-constant,
globally defined complex-valued harmonic morphism from the Riemannian symmetric
space associated to a split real semisimple Lie group. This completes an
affirmative proof of a conjecture of Gudmundsson.
